Enter the mayhem that was Destruction Derby 2, released in 1996. It is, without doubt, one of my absolute favourite racers ever.
I remember it so clearly. I was a young teenager on work week with my middle school. Together with a friend we had got a job at an electronics store. We were told we could play on their PlayStation system during breaks, the very week Destruction Derby 2 was released. Being the age we were, both the PlayStation and this game appealed so perfectly to us.
I think our obvious enthusiasm for this game probably sold more than a few copies to customers passing by! At first we were simply trying out the physics, remember that mid-nineties racers with so much destruction was a rarity. It stood out from other racers like Ridge Racer, a sort of Daytona USA on steroids for the PlayStation, with focus on smashing and wrecking cars.
Standing in front of the shop PlayStation stand, we rammed into walls, barrel rolled off jumps, drove consistently the wrong way and tried every imaginable angle for the car to crash. "Hey, what if we crash like this?!" "Or how about driving the wrong way there!", "What if we jump off the edge at an angle?!" and so forth. Our imaginations fuelled the fun we had!
Eventually we progressed from the initial amazement of the crashes and graphics. We wanted to unlock new racetracks and tried winning races. I remember we had real difficulties achieving this. Approximately a year later when I got a PS1, I purchased the game as a Platinum release and understood why it was tricky to unlock new racetracks; it was unforgiving and really hard! Not simply because the opponents were ruthless, but because the game was based on physics and gave way for unpredictable consequences during races.
Luckily, you could pit stop during races and hammer away on the X button to repair various sections of your car. The most important being the front where the engine was. Side sections affected the wheels. Loosing or damaging these usually resulted in a lost race. This interactive pit stop is actually something I'd like to see again in an arcade racer!
The unpredictable pattern of each race made replaying race after race a new scenario. It also meant each race victory made you feel like you'd achieved and fought for something special to get first place! I realised then, and for a lot of racers right up to this very day, that good physics in racers really pay off to make each race feel unique. I'm not talking about it needing to be realistic, but it felt right with momentum and weight to the cars.
That feeling was something the English developer from Newcastle, Reflections, perfected in it's next game, Driver. The weight of the cars in DD2 feel heavy and drift styled, making way for some really exaggerated, yet amazing moments. At first you'd drive the beginner car with lots of grip, then you moved on to the slightly looser feel of the medium difficulty car and, at the end, you drove the Pro car. Mastering the pro car gave way for some really cool and neat driving with more speed available as a reward.
"I think our obvious enthusiasm for this game probably sold more than a few copies to customers passing by!"
A simple jump could send the car bouncing in the wrong direction as it impacted with the ground after flight, simply because of suspension physics. A serious crash could have you losing a wheel or a simple touch of a wall could affect your turn and make you spin off the road. Then we have the worst case scenario; the car took so much damage that it totalled.
Which meant game over. No restart race. No new car. Just a DNF, Did Not Finish, in your season statistics. I quickly had to learn how to drive well and cope with unforeseen crashes and learn the physics to understand what impacted the car out of course.
Luckily, you could pit stop during races and hammer away on the X button to repair various sections of your car. The most important being the front where the engine was. Side sections affected the wheels. Loosing or damaging these usually resulted in a lost race. This interactive pit stop is actually something I'd like to see again in an arcade racer!
The unpredictable pattern of each race made replaying race after race a new scenario. It also meant each race victory made you feel like you'd achieved and fought for something special to get first place! I realised then, and for a lot of racers right up to this very day, that good physics in racers really pay off to make each race feel unique. I'm not talking about it needing to be realistic, but it felt right with momentum and weight to the cars.
That feeling was something the English developer from Newcastle, Reflections, perfected in it's next game, Driver. The weight of the cars in DD2 feel heavy and drift styled, making way for some really exaggerated, yet amazing moments. At first you'd drive the beginner car with lots of grip, then you moved on to the slightly looser feel of the medium difficulty car and, at the end, you drove the Pro car. Mastering the pro car gave way for some really cool and neat driving with more speed available as a reward.
I think I learned every dirty trick in racing through DD2. I ended up being really good at getting opponents overturned, spun-out of the road or simply smashed towards concrete walls. Skills I've often used since in racers, especially when playing against friends. Multiplayer brings out the worst in people, and DD2 taught me all that!
I must mention the destruction bowls. One cannot avoid to mention them in a write-up about a Destruction Derby title! They put 20 cars facing each other in a arena, shaped like a concrete bowl, with one goal; survive and smash all the other opponents to pieces!
I must mention the destruction bowls. One cannot avoid to mention them in a write-up about a Destruction Derby title! They put 20 cars facing each other in a arena, shaped like a concrete bowl, with one goal; survive and smash all the other opponents to pieces!
The moment you got the green light, the insane carnage began. Smashing 20 cars into each other, combined with the fact that the cars no longer were glued to the ground like in the original DD1, meant you were airborne quickly. Seeing a huge amount of cars flying into the sky and smashing down was so amusing. Although the proper races were far better in DD2, the actual destruction bowl was better in DD1. There it was far more tactical and skill bases, and felt less random.
Like I said, Destruction Derby 2 is truly one of my favourite racers ever. A real eye opener to why I love this genre so much. I can still hear that over-the-top commentator voice in the game screaming "wow, mind the paintwork!" or "total destruction!" or some other cheesy line. The combination of DD2's fantastic races, and DD1's tactical and addicting destruction derby bowls are still rivalled to this very day in my opinion.
A fond memory among many racers I've played through the years!
Like I said, Destruction Derby 2 is truly one of my favourite racers ever. A real eye opener to why I love this genre so much. I can still hear that over-the-top commentator voice in the game screaming "wow, mind the paintwork!" or "total destruction!" or some other cheesy line. The combination of DD2's fantastic races, and DD1's tactical and addicting destruction derby bowls are still rivalled to this very day in my opinion.
A fond memory among many racers I've played through the years!