There’s certainly a sense of accomplishment in the rags to riches gameplay of many “serious” racing games. Choose a beaten up banger, sedately lap around Tsukuba Circuit at 50 miles per hour for a few races before upgrading your hub caps for an extra 2 BHP. Get out there and do it all over again and in just a few hundred hours, you’ll finally be able to drive that Ferrari F40 you had your eyes on since day one or at least change your car’s colour to pearlescent white with tinted windows. But, what if there was another way?
How about jumping into a meaty bit of American muscle right from the off, rear-end sliding wildly as you attempt to fend off the five other cars all attempting to push you off the side of a fantastical track that loops through the heavens, all to the sound of screeching tyres, metal screaming on metal, with a thumping four to the floor House beat underpinning it all? Don’t like the colour? Change it. Want it to be a race in the pouring rain? Change it. I don’t know about you but that’s exactly what I need and Wreckreation delivers this kind of arcade fun in the first few opening moments without a single license test in sight.
There’s no denying that the DNA of the beloved Burnout series is all over Wreckreation. From the flaming wreckage of Takedowns or the points you’ll add to your license to unlock more cars and events, to the way you enter races by slamming down on the accelerator and brake at the same time, anyone with even a passing knowledge of Criterion Games arcade classics will feel right at home behind the wheel of the cars in this open-world racer. Full of street races, explosive crashes, stupendous stunts and a huge amount of collectibles, this could sound like just another iteration on what was already a successful formula but Wreckreation takes this and evolves.
That’s because the big twist here is the fact that pretty much any facet of the world can be tweaked to your taste. Using the Live Mix system, handily accessed with a tap of a button, you can add all sorts of obstacles and race tracks in real-time. Loops, hairpins, pipes and more can be placed anywhere you see fit to create your own custom courses. Weather, time of day and traffic can all be adjusted to suit your mood. If your car needs a new look, there’s no need to wait to unlock a new paint job, just jump into Live Mix and choose. It’s refreshing to not have to grind for parts and just have the freedom to have whatever your little heart desires, right from the get go.
Racing itself feels great with each new car feeling unique, if not really at all realistic. This is about having riotous fun, not learning braking distance or perfectly hitting the apex. In fact, the only thing that you’ll care about hitting is the other racers as you attempt to smash them into trees and barriers, both cars hurtling down the wrong side of a motorway, playing chicken with ambulances and sedans to keep your boost meter at max. Get it wrong though and you’ll be treated to a slow-motion view of your car being absolutely demolished, bursting into flames as it barrel-rolls through the sky. Oh well, stop wincing and get back in the race as you respawn with only moments lost and it’s still all to play for. This is a game that rewards balls of steel over more technical racing.
With a ton of single player events to complete, hidden gates to smash (which will be handily added to your mini-map as you find them – an absolute godsend), billboards to launch yourself through, unique cars to hunt down, new Live Mix parts to grab and “Wrekords” to break (online high scores on each road for boosting, drifting and more), there’s plenty to spend your time chipping away at. There are a couple of niggles though, one of which being the distance between some of the single player races.
Whilst there are loads of events to find, you can spend a little too much time travelling between them, the world being so vast and obviously intended for creative, collaborative play. Fast travel does help with this minor frustration but only after you have first uncovered the race and necessary fast travel parking lot for the first time, meaning that I’ve spent quite a while just cruising around looking for my next big event.
Performance is generally pretty solid but I’ve experienced a few audio bugs, with everything becoming muffled before suddenly exploding out of the speakers once again, as well as a single hard crash that lost some of my single player progress. Annoying, yes, but not a deal-breaker by any stretch as I’m sure that this will be patched in the full release. Graphically, everything looks great if not truly spectacular, but it’s certainly an eye-opener seeing your newly created tracks stretching up into the distant sky as rain lashes down around you. There’s a palpable sense of speed as you hit the boost button, the world around you stretching and blurring as if you’re warping time itself as you hit ever more insane speeds.
By far, the focus of Wreckreation is the online play, with opportunities for unique gameplay with your digital buddies. Create elaborate races full of traps, team stunt challenges or just screw over your mates in real-time as you collaborate to remix the world even as others are driving around. This presents the biggest draw for Wreckreation as aside from the challenges the developers have already provided, there’s now infinite possibility to make your own fun. Track pieces snap together automatically as you float around, ghost-like, placing new objects in the world. It’s super fast and easy to get a grip on, even if you’re not used to this kind of creative play.
With a vast, open landscape full of creative potential, Wreckreation will unleash your inner child, looping custom courses throughout the world like digital Hot Wheels tracks. Whilst great fun in solo play, it truly shines when playing with friends as you create your own carnage-filled craziness, everyone adding ridiculous ramps, flaming hoops and chassis crushing monstrosities to the mix, as you thread your way through rush hour. A throwback to arcade racers of the 2000s, it’s a great reminder that sometimes you need to forget about differentials or brake bias and just enjoy smashing cars to smithereens as you plough headfirst into oncoming traffic. Sticking fun first and foremost, Wreckreation is sure to keep your heartbeat racing to redline.
