Wreckfest game Review: Crashing The Party
Wreckfest, the master sheetAfter many misadventures, and a most encouraging early-access phase, Wreckfest is finally available on our beloved PCs. The creators of FlatOut return with a crazy racing game, and the impeccable realization. A must in this summer period, for anyone who loves speed and uninhibited running.
In early 2013, Bugbear Entertainment was returning to basics after several years of mistakes. The project he was presenting to the public then had no name, but one could immediately recognize the studio's special flair. Speed, skidding and crumpled sheet metal, everything seemed to indicate a resurrection of the first FlatOut. First called Next Car Game before being officially baptized Wreckfest, the title dragged its carcasses in early access for many years, attracting in its wake many already convinced players. Now that it’s out for good, we’ve been looking at Bugbear’s latest baby and you can imagine it if you already know the title, we had a hard time getting it.
THE PLATE OF OPTICIANS
Attention, broken retina: by launching Wreckfest in 3840x2160, we expected to be able to enjoy a nice game, but technically limited to the low means of an independent studio. We have rarely been so wrong. Wreckfest is simply beautiful, offers fine textures and extremely successful light and particle effects. The game screen is all the more sparkling as the artistic direction of the title is at the level of this impressive debauchery of technical mastery. Colored to excess, the game evokes from this point of view there the work of the English of Playground Games, insofar as it does not hesitate to saturate certain colors to flatter the eyes of the player. Too bad for realism: each new race, each new event is a treat and Wreckfest rarely disappoints, even in the modeling of the many vehicles displayed. It is beautiful, it is varied, and above all it is rich in many details that bring the screen to life, adding here and there small notes of colors or movements that give the impression of participating in a real race.Note, however, that this apparent perfection is sometimes spoiled by fairly large drops in framerate, which often occur during turns or collisions, when the game screen displays more than four or five cars. We imagine that this is only a small concern for optimization, since our machine is largely capable of handling a racing game such as Wreckfest, even in UHD. The solution for the player is quite simple: lower the resolution or cut corners. We hope that Bugbear will correct this quickly, but since the game is already available since June 14, our little finger tells us that it could take a little longer. Too bad for owners of large configurations.
FLYING GOLD
But this beautiful setting would be nothing without great driving sensations, and in a game like Wreckfest, you could immediately ask yourself a few questions. After going for a ride on the options side, to remove all forms of driver assistance, we headed for our first race, which ... was not one. Solidly seated on a four-wheel mower, we had to play a bumper car with about twenty participants. Not the ideal conditions to test the driving of the game, but enough to note that the physical engine of Wreckfest has it in the belly: the turns, the loss of stability due to the smallness of the vehicle compared to the size of the pilot, the shocks , everything was exhilarating with credibility. Or even, of realism. If afterwards and with our first races, we quickly understood that Wreckfest was not looking for realism at all costs, the whole is extremely pleasant since it reproduces with enormous accuracy everything that takes place on the screen. Mass transfers, in particular, which is very important in a game like this, because you have to constantly rebalance your racing car to be sure of offering no grip, no support for opposing drivers who will not hesitate to serve it. Wreckfest is certainly a racing game, but stock-car racing, in which there are hardly any rules. Contacts are therefore commonplace and you will quickly have the reflex to try to align your car as much as possible with the road, to avoid being pushed, turned over, and thrown as food to the rest of the peloton.
When cornering, you feel the wheels gradually lose their grip and start drifting; the most gifted will be able to follow the turns by skidding their car for tens of meters, dodging the pervert opponents or the carcasses of the vanquished. Add to that an impression of exhilarating speed and the feeling that at my slightest second of attention, your racing car will end in mille-feuille, the Wreckfest races are as enjoyable as they are addictive. Difficult to let go of such a precise game, too, and in the end so stupidly nag. The balance between racing and door fights is often tricky to find in this kind of game, but Bugbear succeeds fingers in the nose. We expected no less from the creators of the first two FlatOut.
And since we're talking about physics, how can we not mention the excellent work that has been done on collisions and damage management. Localized with great accuracy, they fully contribute to the pleasure of play: the longer the race lasts, the more you see your racing car start in pieces. The feeling of walking on a rope, taking risks is an essential element in any good racing game. In a title like Wreckfest, there is an extremely telling visual element. When you can see through your car and the passenger seat is on fire, it’s hard not to feel a little bit of stress when approaching a corner that you know is decisive.
THE STOCK-CAR AS YOU'VE NEVER SEEN IT
The good news is that in addition to being beautiful and fun to play, Wreckfest has the good taste to accompany it all in an eye-catching Career mode. Divided into several championships (Regional Juniors, National Amateurs, Challangers, Pro Internationals, World Masters), this Career has the advantage that it does not require you to be absolutely first everywhere, all the time. Wreckfest is also a game of crashes and tatanner the other participants must be rewarded; but that is unfortunately not always compatible with podium ambitions. So sometimes the game will give free rein to your destructive madness, while at times it will ask you to finish first. Goals change from race to race. Some are even organized in the form of mini-knockout tournaments: if you are not ranked in the top fifteen, you do not advance to the semi-final; semi-final which will require you to be in the top ten to reach the grand final. All in all, it’s about earning enough points during these races to unlock other events, especially the top championship. The progression is done overall without a hitch, because the tests are all very varied, and you will regularly ask to change your car. When there is a glitch, it is simply because you are not good enough. Wreckfest is pretty demanding and the AI has no mercy; note that his difficulty in Mario Kart can be frustrating at times, since road trips and crashes rarely prevent the drivers supposed to be at the top of the ranking from coming back. The opposite is not necessarily true for the player, for whom a slightly violent exit from the road is often synonymous with lost racing. For our part, we very regularly used the Start button on our controller, to restart the race from zero.In fact, AI is probably the only weak point in this section of the game; not hesitating to go out of its way to come and make the door for you again, it sometimes condemns itself to a sad fate, without it being really profitable for it. Luckily, that doesn't happen in every race, but when it does happen, it's totally infuriating. To fight against these terrible enemies, we will regularly take a look at the game store, which allows you to buy new cars, but especially new parts. Some will make it faster, while others will reinforce it, for example by adding large metal bars on the doors that will give them more resistance. You will quickly understand the importance of the garage which, on a race, can change everything. Aspiring mechanics will also be able to tweak the settings of their car, by adjusting suspensions, transmission ratios, differential or brake balancing. It’s pretty basic, but very effective, to the point of dramatically altering the behavior of a car that we previously thought was unable to win.
We must also salute the game-design work that has been done on the various tests of this Career, and in particular the design of the circuits: they are never chosen by chance, especially in the destruction tests. Special mention to the bus race, where we are instructed to destroy ten small cars. The U-turn section makes sense here, for better or for worse. And especially for the best, frankly.
The notes
+ Positive points
Really pretty on PC
Physical engine in the hair, for piloting as for collisions
Damage management
Career mode, very varied
Fun from start to finish
-Negative points
AI sometimes has some oversights
Online a bit basic
We still find some bugs
Some optimization concerns to be able to play in 3840x2160
Games like Wreckfest are rare. By successfully combining intelligent racing with destruction simulation, the Bugbear game is a worthy descendant of the "real" FlatOut, and one of the best racing games released in recent years. Particularly pretty and with a quality physics engine, Wreckfest may frustrate lovers of perfect trajectories and big lap times, but it will amuse all those looking for a furiously entertaining pastime.
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