or Test Drive: Eve of Destruction as the Americans have over there.
Basically it replicates something I've never heard of... Eve of Destruciton, when a load of self proclaimed mulletted moustachioed red necks take a load of reenforced slightly knackered cars and smack the "b'jezuz" out of each other for an entire evenings entertainment.
There is a bucket load of racing types, all seamingly replicated from the real world... from a typical race to other more esoteric concepts like figure 8 race with a 4 way jump into the same air space, pole races, where you have to do a 360 around a pole each time you get to one, point to point races where at each marked point you have to get to the next one... in the most direct route, there is also meant to be caravan racing and loads more, car sumo is another one I can think of.
Essentially the whole game lives or dies by its handling model, in this case its pretty straight forward and fun, so you can get on with actually contributing to the carnage, unusually the brake button and the reverse button are different, thats about as steep as the learning curve gets. Bizarrly there is an inside chassis camera, where you can see the suspension working...
The career mode, which appears to be the guts of the game, has you "living" in a town, where you can drive to the garage, local restaurant for betting and so forth, the better the ranking you get by entering more Eve of Destructions the more the town opens up with more challenges, you get a paint shop some more races more cars.
Obviously you win money for racing and you have to repair your car, which is in a persistent state of knackeredness till you spend the $8 or whatever to fix it. Also, this is the clincher, there are "Reputation" points that also transmute into money eventually, you get Reputation points for winning races, hitting other cars and killing, yes, killing other cars/drivers.
So far, thanks to the engaging simplicity of the concept and its honest execution, I've definitly had my £9 worth of entertainment out of it so far.
Is it multi?
How many opponents are there and are there different tracks or is it all just one big arena with different configurations of checkpoints and obstacles?
It claims 4 player with the 'tap on the the box... that might be quite awesomness.
As for the race locale, there are distinct differences between the towns that are vaguely refered to in the selectable Eve of Destruction event title and the map that sits behind some photos on the loading screen.
Basically there appears to be a few different arenas where the action takes place, which is configurable for each event, around the track you get proper physics tyre walls, hay bails and giant concrete pipes and the like.
As for excite truck linearage... other than some of the menu music having that unique flavour and the way the HITS X 2 appears and disappears and that its a freaking driving game... you'd be hard pressed to stamp a seal of same studio on it... the handling is evocative of Reflections stuff, that kinda weighty slidyness that I am so predisposed to like.
Nice impressions Jibber; I think I may well pick this up now. Sounds like there’s a lot of variety and some multiplayer potential, which is what I was after.
Are there any arena style events where the aim is just destruction, or are they all racing based?
Yeah, there are a few, one of them I can think of might be called SUMO, where you have about 10 cars trying to batter each other out of the ring... its good stuff... if I get a chance tonight I'll wrangle some videos together, so you can get a flavour. Quite a few of the events require a fair amount of indiscriminate battering... I'm looking forward to getting at the Caravan Racing, hoooooooweeeeee!
Did some two player cappage:
http://www.opensenses.com/media/dtd/dtd01.avi
http://www.opensenses.com/media/dtd/dtd02.avi
http://www.opensenses.com/media/dtd/dtd03.avi
They'll turn up eventually....
The Multiplayer stuff is surprisingly good, all the one player modes appear to be in there, and the different locations seem to need to be unlocked via the Career mode, was quite a blast getting these vids together.
Nice one dude. I can't stream the vids at work but I'm looking forward to checking them out when I get home. From looking at the stills it looks just like Destruction Derby's crazy uncle
Forgot to mention, my housemate is the top screen, T-Man and I'm the bottom screen; Mad Dog. as you can tell the in stadium announcer shouts stuff out refering to you as you play, its a quite nice effect.
My housemate also bought FlatOut2 via Steam, which is kind different in concept to the Destruction Derby formula.. its a kinda BurnOut, FullAuto with destructable bits and bobs, no weapons and the unique selling point is the rag doll on the driver as he flies through the windscreen. There are DD style evens, but also normal style races etc etc...
Yes Flatout 2 is good. I have that after playing demo and I like it. Spot the DeLorean
Stunt mode is funny althought a little bit random at time. If reader does not know that Flatout has drivers that pop right out of windshield when you crash!
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"And I'm Barry Hercules, Doc"
Some vids and impressions of FlatOut2 would be awesome as it's a title that I've held off from buying for a while now.
For FlatOut2 I'd call it "shallow". Possibly tryingto do too much, and the rag doll death physics don't really turn me on... in principle it's entertaining, but the handling model doesn't engage me as much as it should... you know where it feels a bit tech demoy with lightness and lack of sensation.
But thats from 5 mins play... so what do I know... it might pick up, I'll have to interrogate my housemate.
For FlatOut2 I'd call it "shallow". Possibly tryingto do too much, and the rag doll death physics don't really turn me on... in principle it's entertaining, but the handling model doesn't engage me as much as it should... you know where it feels a bit tech demoy with lightness and lack of sensation.
No that is good impressions. The empty feeling goes a bit later when cars go faster but it does try do a lot of things like car part customisation which seems unnecessary. It is good though but nothing out of ordinary! Multiplayer is good.
I try and do video if I get time. There are some on Google video and probably Youtube but I can not check. You can borry it if you want Madbury.
Plunged a bit more into the multiplayer (2) lots of fun, you can set the AI to highest level and they start to become competitive, which is great.
The favourite so far is Figure 8 Jump Race, that really gets action packed, we also tried some Jump race which was excellent for me, I won one race by flipping out the 1st place guy on the last jump. I was a wooting and a hollering.
Managed to find out what I was missing on the single player too, the interface is a bit counter intuative so I thought I was repeating past "Eves" but actually it was trying to tell me I had been to that locale before, but it was a new event... between working that out and milling around, did some of the races which is purely for the moola...
Getting that Gran Turismo progression vibe at the moment, hopefully that'll top out and I'll have to race... the most competitive AI racing so far has been on 2 player with the AI on "5 Legend"
I try and do video if I get time. There are some on Google video and probably Youtube but I can not check. You can borry it if you want Madbury.
Thanks for the offer bud, but knowing me I'll probably not get around to playing it. I've got so much on at the moment in games and work world.