Hello ladies, gentlemen and those of a non-binary nature, my name is Daibhi and this is the Gamerhub community, and firstly, I feel I should apologise for my quietness this week, but Galadrius had a few things to get on with, and I needed to work through a backlog of videogames in order to get you some good reviews out and up here for the weekend. Without further ado, this is my review of the popular video game, Wreckfest.

Wreckfest has both been a phenomenon in the video game racing world, and a great non-Nintendo alternative to Mariokart, with just the right amount of arcade replayability and destruction simulation to cater to both kinds of racing gamers. When I have people round to my flat in my personal life, this game has eclipsed Mariokart in what racing game people want to play.

Introduction

Wreckfest has been something of a sleeper hit in the videogaming world, as it did not sell very well at first, but as the game ended up on video game digital store sales, the amount of people playing this game skyrocketed. This further skyrocketed when Microsoft put this game onto their Game Pass service. It was developed by Finnish development company Bugbear Entertainment and picked up for publishing by those lovely people at THQ Nordic. The game was originally called “Next Car Game” whilst in beta and alpha testing and development and got the name Wreckfest when it released onto the PC in 2018. A year later, in 2019, PlayStation gamers and Xbox gamers got in on the act and got their hands on this game. PS5 and Xbox series gamers got this game in 2021, and Nintendo Switch gamers finally got this game in 2022, six months before mobile gamers did. The truth is this game has gone the Skyrim route of getting onto as many platforms as possible. It’s even on the Google Stadia, but as we now know, the Stadia is effectively a dead console.

I’ve already alluded to previous games within this review already, but if I had to put a definition on this game, I’d say it was a cross between FlatOut, TOCA and Destruction Derby. The game is chock full of white-knuckle, adrenaline-filled racing, trying to ram opponents off the road (or eliminating them) and altering your cars to make them bigger and stronger between races. This is by far one of my favourite aspects, as most of the game’s vehicles are fully customisable.

Gameplay

This game has primarily two modes of gameplay. Firstly, we have the career mode, which is very nicely fleshed out and with the depth required for a good game (particularly with the “seasons” DLC). This game introduces you to the two main styles of driving events, and all the game’s mechanics. All sorts of different vehicles are playable, from bangers like the sort we saw in the 1990s, to driving on go-karts with sofas, to drift racing school buses, this game is nothing without a funny, quirky sense of humour. The racing mode involves getting round the track against a wide variety opponents set in certain race classes, where you have to win, but there is two ways of winning a race. You can be a good guy and get as far ahead of your opponents, or you can simply drive them to destruction, making sure you are the only one on the racetrack. Both of these are possible, and as the game’s slogan suggests, you can drive hard, but you must die last.

The other type of racing is the one that a lot of more casual gamers are going to enjoy a lot more. It is a straightforward demolition derby mode with all the fun and chaos that it implies. Like with the normal arcade racing, you have a wide variety of vehicles and often to comedic effect, but with an extra layer of tactics. Yes, the mission is to die last, so that you are most likely to win, but the winner of this racing mode is the one with the highest score. This means that you have to be aggressive. Being a coward behind the wheel is not an option. Going for the knockout seems like the safest option, but it is not. My advice to you here is to scout around the outskirts of the battle and find the ones with the lowest health to gain a knockout.

There is a multiplayer option as well, which allows you to go race random people, but sadly, the multiplayer mode’s demolition derby leaves a fair amount to be desired. The game needs a solid internet connection for this mode, and it can be as buggy as hell. Even on a lower spec console (like the Xbox One X) has issues with this, but thankfully it is not the graphics that suffer on this, but you will find yourself considering throwing your controller.

There is one last thing I need to mention, and it will explain why I mentioned TOCA earlier. For those who had TOCA on the PlayStation 1, the game had a mechanic that this game has perfected. When your car takes damage in the videogame, it directly affects the performance of your car. The more you let your car get damaged, the less performance you get out of the car and the harder it becomes to win a race. So do not let your car get wrecked if you want your car to go fast.

Graphics

The graphics for this game are probably the weakest aspect of this game, but that is not a bad thing. They are serviceable for the most part, and when this game embraces weather effects, they get very fun and brilliant to look at. The look of the almost-NASCAR tracks are brilliant, but the crowds you race past look shoddy if you are driving in a slower vehicle. There is also the issue of the impact playing online has. This game focuses on the graphics, which means that your graphics will stay comfortably consistent no matter where you are racing. The downside is that the gameplay suffers a bit as a result. Now, if you are playing locally or just by yourself without taking on random opponents online, this won’t be an issue at all, but it is worth bearing in mind before playing.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack is pretty standard for this game, with a mixture of soft rock, harder rock, and piano playing through the game. It is a bit disappointing, but then, you don’t normally play a racing videogame for a new playlist. It is perfectly serviceable, but don’t expect to be wowed on this one. That is not to say the game has rubbish soundtrack, but it’s perfectly forgettable. The foley sounds (not the music, but everything else you hear) is surprisingly good, particularly when your vehicle takes damage. You can actually hear your car’s wheels dragging against bits of broken fenders, which was a bit of a surprise for me. I was not expecting that.

Price point

If you fancy this game, it currently retails at £26.74 on the Xbox Marketplace, and the same on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. It’s £8.49 on iOS and Android but a word of caution for those wanting to play this game on a cell phone- if you want to play this game on a mobile phone, you’ll end up paying a lot more money to play the full game and there’s little in the way of online multiplayer. I would heavily advise against it, but then again gamers, not everyone can have an up-to-date gaming console. Even though this game is available on Google Stadia, and I have watched people play this on a Stadia on YouTube, I am reliably informed that Stadia is a dead console.

Thoughts

Wreckfest is a brilliant game from beginning to end, giving us the best of both simulation racing, banger/Stock car racing, arcade, and rally racing. The customisable options are superb, allowing a lot of freedom and hilarity along the way, and you can get carried away with this game very quickly. It is a very enjoyable game from top-to-bottom, and I personally enjoyed completing this game in the first lockdown of 2020. This game then just got stored on my digital catalogue until I got this game to play this week, and I have genuinely really enjoyed completing this game again. It is a flawed, but brilliant masterpiece, and definitely one every gamer should play at least once.

Joystick Rating 4.5 out 5 Joysticks.

For the Gamerhub Community, I’ve been Daibhi, and you are all legends.