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Destruction Derby Arena

Demolition Derby is a style of racing that many see as a niche, but one that is both vastly underestimated and untapped. There has been a proliferation of car combat games, perhaps most notably with the Twisted Metal franchise, yet only a handful of games where the point was to actually smash fender to fender.

Destruction Derby Arenas comes in as more of an arcade style game rather than a simulation. There are points to be scored and power-ups to drive through to pick up. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but some players are still holding out for a true Demolition Derby with realistic physics and gameplay.

Players will start out with four available car/driver combinations. Each one has attributes in: Speed, Handling and Strength (to varying degrees of course). As players go through Championship Mode certain conditions need to be met in order to unlock other car/driver combinations, as well as progressing to the next event.

After getting through a round in Championship Mode (three races and one arena style smash-em-up) by placing in the top three, the next round becomes available. This is accomplished by a combination of placing high in the races as well as racking up as many points during the arena events (referred to in the game as Destruction Bowls). Points are awarded in a number of ways. Most obvious is by slamming into other cars and dolling out some damage. Various amounts of damage awards various amounts of points. Hitting the underside of a car awards more points for example. Completely damaging a car to the point that it is out of the event awards a much higher score (imagine that).

Stunts can also be performed to have points awarded. By making a jump and landing (perhaps the easiest thing to do in the game) will award a few points. Skidding, pulling a 180, or other stunts such as barrel rolls will award the player points as well. There are also bonus point markers littered occasionally throughout the course. Also sprinkled throughout are shield, turbo boosts and repair power-ups (among others).

There are only 4 rounds in Destruction Derby Arenas, making for a short single player game. So short it can actually be done in an afternoon. This however is made up for in the multiplayer aspect.

Multiplayer the game is an absolute blast to play. Those that remember TOTALED! on the Xbox know how much fun it is to just smash into your friends – between naps while everything loaded. Here, the load times are shorter, so there is no danger of napping while awaiting some good old fashioned multiplayer mayhem.

Offline there is only support for 2 players with only two modes of play – Wrecking Racing and Destruction Bowl. This is fun, but everything needs to be unlocked for this to be truly enjoyable (though that shouldn’t take too long).

Online the game features support for up to 20 players, as well as three other modes. Speedway Mode seems fairly straightforward, Capture The Trophy Mode is like a game of tag where you avoid getting tagged while holding the trophy and Pass Da Bomb Mode is the opposite form of tag, and Last Man Standing is the true demolition derby game – just smash and crash. Unfortunately, I have been unable to check out the online portions of the game. For some weeks now I have been trying, and each time as I reach the lobbies, I get kicked out.

The visuals are decent, but nothing to … well, let’s be honest – the graphics could be better. The cartoony color palate used in many of the races at times makes it hard to see the walls for the road. It also detracts from the game. While this is a bit more of an arcade style game, and the graphics are meant to capture that spirit, it seems as if perhaps too much emphasis was placed on that aspect.

And that’s perhaps the biggest downfall. It seems as if Destruction Derby Arenas overall placed too much emphasis on arcade style gameplay and graphics, and not enough with what demolition derby is all about – beating the hell out of tons of moving steel. There aren’t enough courses nor are there enough events where it is just an all out smashing and crashing festival of carnage.

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Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Jun 30th, 2004 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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