Let’s talk about Wreckfest and Crossout

In my search for new car games, I decided to try a couple of games in the combat genre. Back when I was a teenager, I used to like to play the video game Spy Hunter and the pen & pencil game CAR WARS. At that age, I had much more interest in weapons than lap times so let’s see if that’s still the case. I wasn’t expecting any kind of realism in these games, so I’m relaxing my criteria about driving in 1st person and on the sim rig. 3rd person and mouse will do.

Wreckfest

For some reason, this game just didn’t click with me. Although I could drive around with the steering wheel, it felt silly with such a poor physics model. It may be more fun with a controller or mouse and keyboard. After smashing into stuff, the car looked well broken, but it kept driving as if it was undamaged. Visually, the game is great, and if you like smashing into other cars, it’s probably as good as it gets. But I don’t like smashing cars as much as I thought I would. I returned this for a refund.

Crossout

Crossout is a post-apocalyptic, car-based, MMO. It’s not anything like a driving simulation. It’s more similar to a 3rd person shooter. Crossout cannot be driven with a wheel and the physics suck. Yet somehow I’ve played it for 34 hours. It’s like CAR WARS as a video game. I actually played the original CAR WARS video game back back in the 80s, and it’s nothing like that. It’s like how I imagined CAR WARS would be while rolling dice. Driving around and shooting stuff is amazing, but even more fun is building cars bristling with weapons and then shooting stuff.

Here are a couple screen shots of some of the cars I’ve built. I call this one the Wolf Spider. Note the multiple headlamps that look like eyes, and the 8 wheels representing the 8 limbs. Those pointy things in front house shotguns and cause damage when you ram stuff. There are also two pivoting machine guns. When this thing pounces with all guns blazing, look out. And it’s got a rocket booster out back to make quick getaways or change direction to make another pounce.

This next one I call the Scorpion. It’s primary weapon is the tail-mounted machine gun, which is accurate even at long distances. If you dare to get close, it has claws (shotguns) and fangs (head-mounted turret).