Demolition Racer

"the SMASH HIT that involves smashing and hitting"

This is a racing game. Racing games usualy come in one of two forms. The first form is the cartoony Mario-Kartish game with lots of items and such; and the other is that mega-realistic Grand Turismo which is just a race. This game is somewhere between the two, with an element of crazyness.

In DR, every car has a damage limit. As your car gets hit, taillights, headlights, and windows break, your front and sides get dented, your hood pops up and eventualy flies off, your engine starts to smoke, and then flame, and your car will eventualy explode if it gets damaged too much.

There are a few different modes in which to play. There is the chase mode, the demolition mode, the chicken mode, the last man standing mode, and a suicide mode. In the chase mode, all you do is race. Demolition mode, the main one, is where you are given points for hitting other cars (points for hits, big hits, broken taillight, smashing them into a wall, starting a fire, etc), and you also race. Your amount of points is assigned a multiplyer based on your final place, and the product is your final score. In chicken, enemy cars race one way, and you race the other. First one to complete 3 laps wins (this mode is fun and chaotic)!

The other 2 modes take place in 1 of 3 giant circular arenas. One of them is like a bowl, one is a hill, and one is a bowl with 2 hills in the middle. In last man standing, you get points for hits, and the longer you last, the higher multiplyer you get. In suicide, the only object is to die first. The arena battles are great! (you play with like 15 AI players that duke it out and plenty of action is all around)!

In the way of courses, most of them are great and original. You will race through 10 tracks foward and backward. These tracks include: Freeway Driveby, Pit Bull Speedway, Go-Kart Carnage, and Red-Neck Raceway. More original is when you race through a junkyard, a chemical plant, and my personal favorite, a multi-level above and below ground parking garage.

Throught the courses, there will be tunnles, jumps (oppertunity to cause a death from above), hairpin turns, and realistic non-flat surfaces. Strewn across the streets will be boxes, dead cars' werckage, trash cans and the like. However, watch out for the dreaded TNT boxes, which send your car flying and takes away lots of health.

The cars are nice, too. you pick a driver, a logo for your car, and you can give it a custom paint job. Then you can drive 1 of 8 cars, including a beetle, a station wagon, a sports car, a van, and a hearse. Each car has different stats.

You can find powerups in this game, but they are few and rare. They are simple, a repair, a temporary shield, and a bonus point pickup.

SOUND/MUSIC
The music is a punk/rock/techno mix that sounds okay, but it really dous not do much for me. It is by a whole buncha groups that no one has ever heard of. Some sound effects do not sound good, and the ones that do are overused and therefore repetive. I would give the sound/music a 6.7 out of 10.

GRAPHICS
The graphics are great. The cars and the tracks look nice, and the frame rate is pretty good. there are a few movies and clips. There are a few instances where the graphics get a bit lackluster, but nothing serious. 8.5/10.

CONS
Cars skid too easily.

One thing that bugged me is the fact that the car you pick, all computer players pick. If you pick the sports car for speed, every computer player will also pick the sports car. This goes for any car.

Getting trapped or running into a wall can be a bit too frustrating.

The only other major fault is the inconsinsty of turning. In some places, your car will skid and flip over because it turned too sharply, and in other places, it will s-l-o-w-l-y fade around a turn, causing you to lose lots of speed.

BUY or NOT?
If you like racing games, cars, or blowing things up, I would reccomend this. I got my copy free with my computer, so look into that if you are buying a new computer soon. This is a solid game, and lots of fun to play for an hour or so when you are bored.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/02/03, Updated 04/02/03