Every now and then a game comes along that is so elegantly brutal, so simplistically savage, so primordially barbaric that it makes men feel like howling at the moon, dragging their women by the hair, and scratching themselves in public. This game of inner awareness comes in the form of Psygnosis' Destruction Derby, which may not seem like much on the surface - but don't let that fool you. Destruction Derby brings together a deceptively simple mix of cars, speed and violence that has a strange effect on any males that walk by while it's being played. Anytime someone was playing the game, a crowd of IE males would soon be gathered around the monitor grunting and shouting at the appropriate time whenever a particular nasty bit of automotive destruction would occur. It's much as I would imagine our ancestors dancing around the ceremonial fire celebrating the day's kill. Whatever it is, Destruction Derby really appeals to that side of us that loves to take heavy objects and hurl them at each other.
Destruction Derby is a set of games which usually involve banging cars together at high speeds. The namesake portion of the game, the destruction derby itself, takes place in an arena called the "bowl." Cars are placed all around the edge of the arena and at the sound of the word "go" race towards the center, kicking off an all-out assault on each other in an attempt to gain points and cause much hurt to each other. Strangely enough, the way to score points is not to inflict damage but to spin an opponent's car. Spinning the car 90 degrees nets 2 points, 180 degrees gets 4 points, and causing another car to do a 360 will bring a whopping 10 points (for some reason, no points are awarded for causing 270-degree rotations).
The more damage the cars incur, the more their bodies will be dented, hoods will be crushed, and smoke will eventually start bellowing out. The damage your car has sustained is represented in a diagram in the bottom right hand of the screen, where arrows point at strategic parts of your car. As those individual points take hits, they progressively turn from green to red, but it's your engine arrows that determine when your car is dead. So you fling your car at the others, rear first when you can, trying to protect your engine as long as possible. You'll notice that your steering gets messed up when you take hits from the side, making it impossible to accurately move your car around, and you'll also notice that your car slows down when it's just about dead. And I mean that it slows down a LOT. When it gets to you and one or two other cars, and everyone has been worn down to going super slow, the excitement level really takes a nose dive. Not only do you not move very quickly, but you can't inflict any damage at all because you basically just bump into the other guys. The designers really should have never let the cars run this slow, cause it can take an extraordinary time to kill each other off at this point in the game.
When you get tired of driving around in the "bowl," Destruction Derby offers a mode of play called Wreckin' Racing. Basically, you race on regular tracks where the object isn't necessarily to win, but to score the most points possible. The same scoring is in effect as it was in the "bowl," with an additional 10 points being awarded to the winner of the race. It's much more difficult to spin a car when you're going in the same direction at the same speed as the other cars, but the designers have thrown in some tracks which compensate for that by providing crossover points. These are intersecting areas of the tracks where traffic crosses at a 90-degree angle. When you're driving through these areas, whether you hit someone or get hit is pretty much left to chance, but it really adds a fun aspect to the game.
If you're getting tired of trying to crush everyone else on the track, there's a mode of play simple titled Stock Car Racing where the object is to get around the track as fast as you can in order to actually win the race. No points are awarded for spinning out anyone else, so it's just a flat-out sprint to the checkered flag. Along those same lines, you can also race time trials where it's just you against the clock. It's a great way to get used to the tracks and the driving style of the game.
The graphics in the game are really incredible. Everything is kept to VGA, which means slower systems shouldn't have much of a problem running the game. But VGA doesn't mean ugly. The cars are very detailed, and when these vehicles start taking a pounding, you can really see it. And the extraneous graphics are nicely done as well. The backgrounds of mountains, cityscapes, balloons, all the stuff you'd expect out of an arcade racing game are all here and looking sharp.
The one real problem of the game is that when it was ported from the Playstation to the PC, no steering wheel control was included. You can play using the keyboard, mouse, or analog and digital joysticks, but if you have a steering peripheral, it doesn't recognize it as a regular joystick. While joysticks are fine and even the keyboard works well, I really found myself wishing I was using a steering wheel.
But lots of other PC-friendly features are included in the game, including linked play, championship seasons, saving games, and replay features. You can even place your own cameras along the track during a replay so you can get just the right angle.
I was really surprised by this game, even though I am a big racing sim fan. The designers were able to integrate a realistic car model into a game that some folks might consider frivolous. But there's a surprising amount of depth in this game, and the different types of racing modes will keep the replayability level high. And since you're awarded with new cars and tracks as you progress through seasons, you'll be staying up nights to finish that next track. Destruction Derby is a whole bunch of car-crunching fun, a very nice surprise in a crowded field of racing games.
