You may have noticed that my specialty here has been driving very fast around slight bends or sharp corners without breaking or slowing appropriately. Driving is something that if I participated in the real world, we’d all be dead in about three minutes after I’d ramped off an old woman, through the hospital ward, swore several times, and shot two policemen to then start a twelve-mile chase. In short, I’m not a good driver. I would like to blame my driving school, Burnout.

Burnout is a series of games where there is no such word as “Brake,” that is unless you are t-boning a bus taking old couples to Blackpool for the weekend. The third and fourth games (Takedown and Revenge) are two of the greatest games ever, and possibly the best racing games in the world. They aren’t simulators, but I wouldn’t call them arcade games either. They are just fun, something most developers have forgotten the meaning of.

Let me take you back half a decade to “Next Car Game,” a working title for a failed Kickstarter by the developer of Flatout. An early access demo was released soon after with a level of a giant mechanical spider and several destruction toys on what looked to be a tech demo area. Several years past, 2018 came and Next Car Game was now called Wreckfest; and had released on PC. Though the Xbox One and PS4 release were set for late 2018, then delayed to 2019. Two months ago THQ Nordic decided it would release in August. To paraphrase some people protesting, “We’re here, the car is now queer, get used to it.”

So what’s the game after that demo? One of the greatest racing games ever made, that’s what. Most racing games will (for example, The Crew 2) have you bounce off the walls and cars with very little damage. They do that for the very expensive BMW, Mclaren, and Ferrari badges they put on their cars. F1 2019 will yell at you if you sneeze too loudly and scare a driver, and while being a well-made simulator of the real racing, is a little too stiff. Meanwhile, Burnout 3: Takedown and Revenge did a small amount of degradation over several crashes.

Wreckfest, unlike the others, gives each car a health bar, mechanical failures, and several million crumple points (where the car deforms). However, that’s not the reason I stood up several times, walked away, and tried to catch my breath behind fits of laughter. While there are parts of the game that play the serious racing game motif, I don’t think lawnmower demolition derbies would be sanctioned under the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile).

Not only do you race lawnmowers, but there’s also one race early on in the career mode where there are about 17 lawnmowers and 1 racer in a combine harvester. However, that is not the most ridiculous moment. This particular race was on a figure-eight track, and thus is beyond terrifying when you’d come to the crossroads. Clenching, closing your eyes; and hoping beyond hope that for some reason that big beast of farming equipment is behind you.

Is that all that’s weird? No! Sofa racing is something I didn’t know I wanted, but I now need in my life. twenty-some sofas with four wheels, a serving tray, and two wing mirrors. It is stupid, and it is fun. I love it.

The driving itself is a mixed bag. It isn’t as twitchy as arcade racers, however, when something breaks, it doesn’t affect the handling as it would in a simulator. As I said early for Burnout, it is neither arcade-like or simulator-esque, the car will bend and break but you can still drive when you only have three wheels on your wagon. The weight will affect you, but it doesn’t debilitate you entirely from racing.

What stops you is letting your entire car deplete to 0% health. I’ve driven a Robin Reliant (a three-wheeled van) getting rear-ended, side-swiped, and break-tested by multiple school buses at once. This made the car look like several elephants sat on it. Meanwhile, it drove perfectly fine. Does it matter that I’d never walk again or that if I sneezed near it, it would collapse like a house of cards? Not really. It is more fun to drive in first-person with a steering column in your crotch and the roof coming through your crash helmet.

Ok, so I’ve built up all the good bits, where are the complaints? It is a little too jarring of a shift sometimes. While it is fun to ride lawnmowers in demolition derbies, sofa racing off figure-eight tracks or driving the harvesters up a loop-the-loop, it is just a straight cliff drop into serious banger racing. I love the silly, I love the racing, and I like the two but there’s just a little too much of a gap between them. The line graph for Saints Row 2 shows a perfect flow between chucking poo at buildings and character deaths; meanwhile, Saints Row 3 was the heart-beat of someone on cocaine. Wreckfest is the latter.

Though for serious complaints, the performance is a little variable. This copy of Wreckfest was reviewed on the Xbox One S. Thus when I would press down on the directional buttons I’d get a frame rate of about 12, as this is updating every driver’s position. When you remove the leaderboard by pressing down again, performance jumps back to something more acceptable.

While the silliness is being carried off on people’s shoulders, the standard racing is great because you can kill people. One of the funniest moments was racing up a hill, meanwhile, a car sits on my back right wheel. Then some distance up this little hill, there is a tree on the apex that you’re meant to slow down for and curve around, but I don’t. So I clip this apex, missing the tree by inches; and then suddenly that car is gone. That’s the funniest game of chicken I’ve had with AI in my life.

This is only made funnier that I know he’s dead or very nearly dead at the back of the pack. This makes racing more organic from crashes, as before you’d hit someone into a tree and you’d suspect them to rubberband back in, they’d be dead and you’d win, or you’d be disqualified. All of that is boring and in the past, as Wreckfest is the next car game to sit above them all.

In conclusion, I love Wreckfest to death for being a great racing game that is also funny. My best example of how this simple little racer goes from normal grey racer to one of the best is that, Wreckfest is the best Hammon, Clarkson, and May game. You could see them racing their silly cars up hills, racing sofas, or doing other stupid things, and that’s what makes it fun. You might not be driving supercars around the French or Italian countryside, but you’ll be throwing other cars down queries to their deaths.

An Xbox One review Copy of Wreckfest was provided by THQ Nordic for this review.

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