Destruction Derby Arenas

Go ahead … call me a redneck. I’ve always been a big fan of motor sports, whether it be NASCAR, monster trucks, or a good figure 8 or demolition derby match every now and then. Needless to say, I have always been looking for good racing or motor sports games on PC and console, and so far the only two that I have really been impressed with were the Demolition Racer series for PS and DC, and of course the Destruction Derby series for the PS1. I remember renting the original Destruction Derby a long, long time ago … and I can say that it was the first and only title that I had to pay for through the video rental place since I just “accidentally” forgot to return it. Well, there hasn’t been a new DD title in a while, but now Gathering has released Destruction Derby: Arenas for the PS2. While I was really excited to get my hands on this one, it turned out to be a little less than what I was expecting.

DDA follows suit in overall gameplay with other games of the series, since you can select to either do a straight demolition race (racing with points scored for colliding with opponents and destroying objects) or a bowl match-up, where all drivers enter a demolition derby in a last man standing format (This also includes the DD six impact points on the car, two front, two side, and two back that go from green to red as they get damaged). Now, there are a couple of differences that any DD vet will notice up front to the series, the first of which being a much more arcade style setup than there was before, since tracks and bowls are littered with tons of obstacles ranging from smaller crates, boxes, or tire stacks to planes, other cars, and even the occasional train or something. Also, the bowl arenas now have such obstacles as collapsing floors, catapults, or giant platforms that will spring up and launch you up into the air. Lastly, there are also arcade style pickups lying around, so players can get things like nitrous boosts, rocket thrusts, and even an electrical pickup to cause opponent’s engines to shut off.

On a bright note, I thought that the developers did a good job on the overall control and handling of the cars. Now, for anyone who is looking for them to handle realistically, you will probably be pretty disappointed. As I stated before, this game was designed as an arcade racing game, so be prepared to floor the accelerator and just go zipping around turns at full speed. Now, when you get to unlock more and faster vehicles, you won’t get to do that as much, but it is in there up front. In addition, using powerups is pretty simple, since they just activate on their own, and using a good nitrous boost or two is as simple as a button press.

Secondly, I did like the way that the unlockable vehicles were handled and setup. Basically, when you start the game and are ready to hop in and get going, you select a driver, and the driver has his or her own car that has readouts in three different categories … speed, handling, and strength. The initial four or so that you select do OK, but after beating each track in a series of races, you can unlock a new driver and car (the “track champion” I guess, just to put it in standard racing game terms) provided that you can best their overall score at the end of that particular race in a series. Also, getting a new unlockable driver really was pretty cool, and I liked the variety of the different cars that could be selected to race or just crash up in the arena.  

Now, going along with that last paragraph, it actually leads me into the first area of the game that I wasn’t too comfortable with. When playing a championship series to unlock new drivers and tracks, there is a standard “race, race, race, demolition derby” format that you go through, and when you finish them out the series is over and then you get to save. The obvious problem here is that in the event that you do well on the first race, badly on the second race, and OK on the third race, you may not be able to rack up enough points in the final run to win the series. If this happens, you get to go all the way back to the beginning of the series and go all over again. Yep … no saving during a series, which happens to be a HUGE pet peeve of mine, especially in this day and age where it is in fact entirely possible to make a game that can do that.

Along with the series issue comes the point scoring problem that I found. Honestly, if you asked me how I started at 0 and got to 32000 points by the end of a match, I really don’t think I could tell you. A lot of the scoring that I received seemed to be pretty random, and I was having a lot of issues trying to figure out when I got points and why. There were times where I would barely nick another car, but suddenly I would get 2000 points for spinning them into a 360, but other times where I would drill an opponent from the side, watch them roll about 3 times, and only get 500 points labeled for a 90 degree spin. Again, don’t ask … I don’t know either.

Lastly, I personally didn’t find the track designs to really be that much fun. I thought that they were a little dull overall, containing a couple of twists and turns here and there with some obstacles tossed in. There were a few that had some jumps and you could get some air time or land on someone, but these seemed to be the exception rather than the norm. Basically, I just really didn’t find racing on them to be as exciting as say DD2 used to be, and ultimately I really thought that feeling was missing from the finished product.

OK, usually I like to try and end on a really good note here, so let me just say that they FINALLY DID AN ONLINE DD GAME! Yes, that to me was really the highlight of the game overall. Up to 20 players can enter into one arena or race, and you can also use the headset to talk a little smack along the way, especially after putting someone else into a wall or spinning out an opponent. While the game is somewhat new and there weren’t a ton of people on, I can say that the 10-person match up that I did a couple of nights ago was a lot of fun and got pretty frantic at times.

Overall, I can’t say that I don’t or didn’t enjoy DD Arenas; I just thought that there could have been a lot more that Gathering could have done to it to really make it shine in the car crash up games as the series once did. For you DD vets, this game will be more than likely be fun for you and you should have a pretty good time with it … but you may want to rent it prior to purchasing it. For you racing or crash up fans looking for a new title who maybe haven’t played the PS1 DD series, the best way to sum DDA up is that it provides some good, destructive fun online or off, but it will probably be short lived and might not run past the first couple of months. Maybe give it a test run before spending your money on it. 

Gameplay: 6.8
While I liked the overall arcade feel to the game and I thought that the car handling was OK, I really thought that the track designs were pretty dull overall and that there just really wasn’t a whole lot of excitement to them. I also have a serious issue with having to go back and do a whole race series when I lose due to a track, and unfortunately that is one of the things that is found in here … along with a scoring system that really doesn’t seem too accurate.

Graphics: 7.1
I thought that the selection of cars was good, and each driver seemed to have their own personality to go with the makeup of their vehicle. Also, the tracks had some neat design in the art department, but as I stated before they just seemed a little too uninspired when played.

Sound: 7.0
The music consists mostly of heavy metal / dance mixed riffs that weren’t too bad up front, but tended to drone on a bit after a while. Also the announcer gets a little repetitive as the game goes on, but I have to say that it’s not the worst thing that I’ve heard.

Difficulty: Hard
Honestly, the game really is not that hard, but having to go back and re-do a race series over and over again gets really frustrating. Also, it can be tough to win overall due to the inconsistent point scoring system.

Concept: 6.9
While the game was in need of an overhaul from its PS1 days, I thought that it kind of went in the wrong direction. Keeping the same overall feel and excitement of the original DD series mixed in with updated graphics would have really been cool, and hopefully this will still happen in the future sometime.

Multiplayer: 7.4

This was the highlight of the experience for me personally, and the thing that really saves the game in the “replayability and fun” department for longer than a weekend.  Players can race against up to 19 other racers in a bowl match or a destruction race series, and can talk smack with the headset (which I bought this weekend just for this game) Unfortunately, there’s not many people on yet, but hopefully that will change.

Overall: 6.8
Overall I really would have liked to give this game a better score, but I felt that it just wasn’t up to par with what I’ve come to expect from the series back when Psygnosis had the license. Online really is the best part of the game in my opinion, so if you are planning to get this for offline only play, I would recommend simply renting it for the weekend. Otherwise, DD fans or car crashing buffs may get a kick out of it, but you still may want to give it a shot before shelling out the full price to add it to your collection.