Destruction Derby Arenas – PS2 – Review

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.