Wreckfest. The most. Important. Game. Ever.

This game is such a great concept, but so badly executed.

T.J. said:

I messed around with it for about 20 minutes. Did the lawnmower derby and some dirt track race. Not sure when I will do any more. Game seems like a time waster and not much of anything related to driving. Since I spent $60 on it, I suppose I'll eventually mess around with it some more, but first impressions are that I'd much rather have $60 than this game.

It gets a lot more in depth, and there are a lot more varieties of race. Admittedly the novice tier leaves a lot to be desired. 

The 4th tier of events is downright frustrating. The events get longer, the races get longer, the AI gets unforgiving. You need to hold the right line to win, but armor will slow you down too much. 

In reply to RevRico :

And I'm already restarting the 1st tier events constantly because the AI took me out and threw me into the trees.

I found the 1st tier easier on the Expert setting.  Less rubber-banding effect meant the AI wasn’t able to go thirty miles an hour faster down the straight to hammer me going into the corner.

Just won the sofa race because all 5 drivers ahead of me crashed out.

In reply to Daylan C :

I still haven't won that one. I've done it seriously 2 dozen times and either get wrecked mid race or t boned right before the finish. Every freaking time.

I'm going to try finks advice and run it on expert next time. 

In reply to RevRico :

I think he's right. Doing the crash canyon race now. I lead the entire semi final and won by a pretty big margin with the difficulty on expert.

And I won the final with only one mishap where the leader got punted into my fender by a mid pack car as we were coming out of a hair pin and I tagged him with my fender.

I messed around with a it a bit more.  Using a wheel adds little expect maybe some immersion.  The Reliant Robin cars are basically impossible to drive with a wheel.  The handling can be a bit frustrating to get used to, you need to use power to slide around most corners, but the line between slide and unavoidable spin seem to be pretty thing some times.

The gameplay through the campaign (as noted above) does seem to be more puzzle like and you end up restarting races a number of times trying to figure out the best tactics or after being nailed somewhat randomly by a car (cars will definitely get revenge on you, but even a clean race will result in random attacks).

You do need to realize that the races are as much demo derbys as races.  Many times just staying out of trouble will leave you in the top 5 with a track full of dead cars.

I did a few online races and those are entertaining and probably tamer then some of the AI races!  I think the real fun of this game would be to get some friends together a do some of the races.  There are a number of tracks that require cars to either pass across each other (e.g. 8-track) or pass opposite directions on the same road. The second one reminded me a lot of what we used to call Rubberband races in GT (run a lap backward, enter pits, then finish the 1 lap race forward), which could get quite entertaining.

I just finished 2nd in an oval race after being dumped by a driver that wasn't even on the lead lap. The AI is like playing in a Forza public lobby.

In reply to Daylan C :

That explains why I do well. I've learned to build cars that let me drag race public morons to the first corner, and get out in front. 

So. I am at the point in the game where I have completed everything but select race series, because they're really berkeleying long. Here are my observations. 

You want to be on the inside. The computer has some sort of heat seeking death order where if you are on the outside of any corner, it is going to attempt to murder you. I do not remember it being THAT bad on PC- but it's certainly present on Xbox. 

Also, demolition derbies. I have won all of them outright. For whatever reason, the algorithm that assesses damage to a car heavily weighs in favor of the car dealing the damage. In races and in derbies i've found that I can plow into an opponent with reckless abandon and not suffer a lick of damage, whereas a light tap to my rear quarter will turn my car inside out. It's odd, but be aggressive. Be VERY aggressive. 

If you've made it that far, the road race with the big rigs is the dumbest thing on earth. On paper, wrecking a E36 M3load of semis together on a track should be a lot of fun. In reality, there's a lot of frustration due to the handling model. Somehow they managed to scale up the model from the reliant robin and make it worse. The damn thing kicks the ass end around at absolutely every opportunity. 

All in all, it's quite a bit of fun. I'm looking forward to what the DLC is going to provide for us as additional races. One of the last sets I had to do was all the banger tracks at once, and that was hilarious. One race in particular, only 4 cars even finished the race. Another, 5 finished on the lead lap, 2 finished a lap down, 2 finished 4 laps down, and the rest were DNF. I'd run that series again. 

The limo seems to be a cheater car for any derby it will let me in with it. Also my damn K5 blazer ended up being my favorite C class car. Somehow it handles pretty good and 230hp means I can freight train most other C class cars even though it weighs 5000lbs

I played around with it a bit this morning. I think I completed everything in the first tier except reliant robins. Those I cannot even drive in a straight line. Will have to try that with a controller instead of a wheel. 

In reply to Mndsm :

Should I be using a different A class than the ripper v8? Full armored, all available upgrades, mostly 3rd, and I can't survive the 4th tier races. 

RevRico said:

In reply to Mndsm :

Should I be using a different A class than the ripper v8? Full armored, all available upgrades, mostly 3rd, and I can't survive the 4th tier races. 

I ran a bone stock ripper and did fine. I think upgrades berkeley the leveling system, and make the other cars unfairly hard. 

In reply to T.J. :

Theres two things with that Robin race. One, you're right. The damn things do not go straight. Even when you damage both the left and right front wheels. Wait until you have to do a chicane with one. It's enough to make you punch babies. 

The other thing with the Robin race- slow, steady and on the inside wall. Stay on the flat. The buses cant turn that tight and will invariably slide up the track into the outside wall, or other buses- depending on which happens to be in the way. The throttle is super lightswitchy  and the thing is prone to catastrophe over steer despite having less horsepower than an unmanned bicycle. 

I just did an 8 race series on the World level with the Roadslayer 2nd Gen Firebird/Camaro thing, and absolutely DOMINATED with light mods on the car.

I did the free-for-all Demo Derby two series after that.  I forgot to go to the garage first, so the first go round was with the Supra/Beetle double-decker I had used in the Demo Derby before that.  It didn’t fare that well against the busses, harvesters, RV’s, and Semi’s.  Switched to the Limo for the 2nd try.  Won easily.

Doing a six race oval series (ovals, fig 8, down and backs), and on the Big Valley Speedway Outer Loop, I’m on lap 8, and it’s me and the 2nd place car left.  Of course, I’m at 9%, but I have a half lap lead, and almost every wrecked car is on the high line the AI likes to use. 

racerfink said:

Doing a six race oval series (ovals, fig 8, down and backs), and on the Big Valley Speedway Outer Loop, I’m on lap 8, and it’s me and the 2nd place car left.  Of course, I’m at 9%, but I have a half lap lead, and almost every wrecked car is on the high line the AI likes to use. 

That's the trick. AI will always default to the high/outside line. Makes it a pain in the ass in chicanes because theyll plow through 15 cars to hit that line. But it's nice in ovals because you can go low and squeeze by. 

I forgot about this thread!
I've been playing it since the day it came to console. I'll admit to being a little disappointed, mainly by the load times and unrealistic/predictable damage modeling. I am having some fun online, and some of the tracks are just NUTS! I love the figure 8s, crash canyon, and the track with the loop.

I've found that the easy button for online racing is to build a car with as much power as possible and remove as much armor as you can. I remove the bumpers and roll cage, and I have only wrecked out once (and that was on the half-oval where you have oncoming traffic).

I can't wait until custom servers. All I'm going to do is figure 8s and Crash Canyon.

TheRX7Project said:

I forgot about this thread!
I've been playing it since the day it came to console. I'll admit to being a little disappointed, mainly by the load times and unrealistic/predictable damage modeling. I am having some fun online, and some of the tracks are just NUTS! I love the figure 8s, crash canyon, and the track with the loop.

I've found that the easy button for online racing is to build a car with as much power as possible and remove as much armor as you can. I remove the bumpers and roll cage, and I have only wrecked out once (and that was on the half-oval where you have oncoming traffic).

I can't wait until custom servers. All I'm going to do is figure 8s and Crash Canyon.

I want a cloverleaf figure 8. 4 loops, all cross in the middle. Think hotwheels cross cross crash. 

I'm thinking a double crossover, dog bone where you have both crossovers AND oncoming traffic:

TheRX7Project said:

I'm thinking a double crossover, dog bone where you have both crossovers AND oncoming traffic:

I'm so, so into this. 

The center crossover better be a plateau with ramps