Wreckreation
Review
An arcade racer that is scaled back in many ways, and expanded in others.
by Jordan Helsley
reviewed on PC
Mix It Up
What sets this game apart, primarily, is its "Game DJ" feature. Through the clunky side menu that you operate with the D Pad (the first of many Paradise holdovers) so many different parts of the game can be customized or changed, as if you are DJing the world, I suppose. This can be as simple as, obviously, changing the radio station between a half-dozen or so fine-but-not-great genre offerings, or a bit more impactful like changing the time of day or the level of traffic. This menu also gives you the ability to craft the world to your liking more broadly. Streets play an important role, as they did in the past, and you can rename them to your liking while driving on them. You can rename the world itself, and even your cars while customizing them. So, that Jeep-like can just be a Jeep Wrangler, if you like, instead of the somewhat obscure make and model that exists in-game. Unfortunately this customization does not extend to more critical areas like the camera positioning, but it's nice to be able to make this map personal, especially as you get deeper into the biggest feature.
Creating tracks and events is the star of the show. Among the collectibles (gates and billboards are here, too) are Live Mix objects. This includes simple things like basic ramps to catch some air and standard crashable obstacles, but more fantastical things as well, which they call Sky Tracks. Starting with a massive on-ramp, massive roadways can extend up into the sky and snake over the landscape before, theoretically, coming down at another point on the map. There's a ton of potential with this system to create large and dangerous Hot Wheels-style tracks complete with loops, massive jumps, and even rotating and moving obstacles. Or you can keep it on the ground and put up a few soccer goals and a ball. They lean into the weirdness enough that it avoids even further direct comparisons, but it is ultimately all about the racing.
Road Trippin'
The feel of the actual racing, and the learning curve associated with it, depends a lot on each individual player’s veteran status with various other racing games. Handling feels most similar, of course, to Paradise, in that it is fairly tight and arcadey, with a powerful hand break and air control on jumps. Each car class has a distinct feeling, and there's plenty to mesh with among nearly 50 vehicles, but it can absolutely take some getting used to as you crash your way to feeling in control.
Because of its vertical tendencies, Wreckreation wants to place a greater emphasis on its air control. Horizontal spins and barrel rolls are back, and even easier to control, but it also adds an air brake mechanic, in which you open both front doors of the car to slow a launch that was maybe a bit too incredible.
Solving Puzzles
All of this combines to not only make driving around the space fun, but to add a little bit of puzzling to rack up the game's various collectibles. Most billboards, that are just begging to be smashed, have an accompanying ramp nearby, but they're often printed with a faux business or ad campaign that hints at a requirement needed to get credit for the destruction, like something mentioning giving an album a "flat spin," or an airline talking about taking an "air break."
Other smashables, namely the Live Mix objects, usually require careful ramp placement, or, if there's a particularly difficult long jump, maybe a sky track that allows you to easily drive through it. There's a lot to see and collect in this massive map, but because it lacks a proper city, the density just isn't at the same level as other games of this type. Because of this, the gates that you crash through, which previously denoted a shortcut during a race, more often lead to tangential roads or areas.
Crashing With Style
Wreckreation is a bit more difficult than its predecessors, and part of that is its incredible sense of, and ability to gain, speed. The world around you moves so quickly so often that a fatal side swipe, or worse, is inevitable because it's not incredibly forgiving with contact while racing. Fortunately this means that getting back into position after a crash is more attainable with tight control, but without a ton of tall buildings bordering the road ways, you can often end up wildly off-track without a crash, if you avoid the trees. With this in mind, I appreciate Wreckreation's "one-way guardrails," which allow you to phase through them to reenter the road, but collide with them when trying to leave. Much easier than driving in the grass trying to find a gap to rejoin the other racers.
Another aspect of difficulty is the unfortunate presence of glitches. Things like collision inconsistencies with ramps placed on top of rough terrain are understandable, but more than a few times one glitch or another prevented me from finishing in first place in an event. One of those I simply couldn't get the game to register that I was ahead of everyone else, and in another I bumped a racer off the road who then teleported to the finish line. These are obviously fixable problems, but are nonetheless frustrating when you're trying to work through 140 events. No one likes being forced to repeat things they've already conquered.
Wreckin' Buddies
To take full advantage of Wreckreation, friends are required. The developers were smart to focus on this aspect, versus a wider multiplayer focus, simply because it makes future engagement more realistic, even if it does admit defeat on a wider scale. During my time with the game I never saw more than two online lobbies running at a time, and they all had only the host present when I joined. I also don't think many of the players I ran into over the course of my online player were familiar with the structure of the online events, which again carry over a lot from Paradise. In one instance we triggered a meet up, an event where everyone races to a certain position from wherever they are on the map, and three of us showed up while the fourth was seemingly oblivious to the goal entirely. And without any easy communication options, like a quick chat or something, it meant the only recourse was to abandon events entirely or kick the player, further decreasing the roster of a lobby that thrives on multiple players. At least the baked in events have enough variability to be engaging, but public lobbies feel like the lesser experience at this point.
With a focus on friends, the game not only has a better guarantee of a collaborative lobby, but also things like the ability to Live Mix the world together, and race on the hand-crafted tracks and events in your own world, because when you place ramps and tracks, they stay there until you remove them. Friends also asynchronously battle for leaderboard positions in their own worlds, competing for Wreckords (plenty of "wreck" puns, by the way) on individual streets or events.
Not Quite Paradise
Wreckreation wears its influence in its presentation, mechanics, and throughout many other aspects of the gameplay. It retains some of the bad aspects, sticks a bit too close to some of the good, and is missing maybe a little of both, all at the same time. Ultimately, the act of driving and crashing feels pretty good, but the awkward fast-travel and menus, which feel close to carbon copies, are in dire need of modernization. While the large map has enough variety for a bunch of open, mountainous spaces, the lack of a dense city feels like a step backwards in just about every way, and gives the entire world a more empty feeling. There are plenty of tools at each player's disposal to create tracks and events, but relying on a social experience focused directly on friends means that larger scale multiplayer is hamstrung before it has a chance. If Wreckreation has the opportunity to grow, the foundation is solid, but if it can't or won't, it risks feeling like a knock-off of its primary predecessor to some, and simply an awkward experience to others.
As always, follow Hooked Gamers on Instagram for news updates, reviews, competitions and more.
6.8
fun score
Pros
Tight driving, with good looking crashes, that is unlike contemporary racers, and that's before building tracks and creating bespoke events.
Cons
Dated design, in many ways, which feels a bit too much like a 17-year-old game, with an expanded, but more barren, map that relies a little too heavily on player created content.
