Test Drive: Eve of Destruction
Is Atari's latest racer worthy of the Test Drive name? Only one way to find out...
Published: September 20, 2004
The hardest game to review is one that sits in the middle of the road. If it's crap, then it's easy to put a little bite on every other sentence, to ladle a little seething hatred into a paragraph here and there. If it's really good, it's even easier to talk up all the pluses while a grin slowly creeps across your face as you recall some of the more memorable parts of the game. But what happens when you have a solid game that leaves you with an otherwise hollow experience when you look back on it?
There's been a noticeable dearth of good smash and bash games since the boys and girls over at Reflections decided to take things in the Driver and Stuntman directions, though it certainly seems the team at Monster Games has filled that void nicely. The developers' pedigree is readily apparent (the team previously tackled the NASCAR Heat and Dirt to Daytona games for Infogrames (now Atari), but things have leapt off the track a bit, and for those not content to let the concept of constantly turning the wheel in one direction for a couple hours slowly melt their higher brain functions (yet can't shake that need for a jug o' 'shine and some down n' dirty racing), there's a lot to like about Eve of Destruction.
I doubt there was more to tacking on the Test Drive name than adding some brand recognition, but it ends up being a nice fit. Chronicling an up-and-comer's rise from backroads dirt track derbys in compact cars to filled-to-the-brim arenas in couple-ton rolling wrecking balls is pulled off quite well, especially considering the amount of variety in the events.
The bulk of the game takes place in Eves (more on those in a second), but things actually start when you're dropped into a rural clump of trailers, garages, salvage yards and diners, all connected mainly by dirt road. This should give you a pretty good idea of what kind of flavor the game goes after; it's not crazy to think the programmers chased those thousands of lines of code with a long pull from a can of Bud. In between Eves, the "town" provides a handful of distractions like bets on short races with other drivers in the area, a couple of time trial-like courses that give you progressively more cash for finishing the race in less and less time, a salvage yard that you can pull new cars from, as well as a garage to upgrade your junkers.
By and large, however, you'll be competing in Eves to boost both your cash reserves and increase your reputation rank, which in turn unlocks more events and a few special cars for the multiplayer and non-career Action mode. The Eves are comprised of a handful events like figure eights (where the track criss-crosses itself for maximum crash potential), jump courses (read: a big jump populates some part of the course to cause some nice flips should you take the jump wrong), and shortcut races (the track offers two paths, one for the people falling behind to cut into the leaders, and another that forces a wide arc), while suicide races force two rows of cars to drive in opposite directions around the track. The gauntlet (where you must take a hearse for a few laps while the rest of the pack tries to slam you into oblivion), and trailer races (where you have something attached to the back of your car, and destroying it destroys your car) round out the racing experience.
Then there are the derby events like wrangling, (you're timed by how fast you can take down a small, maneuverable car), push off (where you're trying to push other cars out of a ring) and good ol' fashioned destruction derby (just end the race as the last one alive). These events are cobbled together in 25 different Eves, with the events randomly being mixed and matched (though you'll almost always have a couple races and a push-off or derby in every Eve), winning these by placing high in the individual events nets you more cash, and from there you can buy a new car or juice up your machine with one of three very basic upgrades that boost speed, handling or toughness.
The former two upgrades play more of a part in the stuff you do outside of Eves, namely throwing down some cash on illegal races with ranked players or trying to haul your car around a sandy construction yard obstacle course. The latter upgrade is probably the most important overall, since regardless of how fast your car is, if it can't take any hits, it'll be the first one out during a demo derby.
That's essentially all there is to the game. Time trials and drag races provide a basic bit of distraction from the main event Eves, and actually playing through the entire career gets you some great unlocked vehicles (hearses, busses, etc.), and unlocks more modes, but it's really just filler for the game's namesake. What's odd is that it's really nothing particularly spectacular, gameplay-wise, but the combination of potential for huge hits, the variety in races and the instant playability of the different events means it's incredibly hard to stop playing.
This is no doubt helped by the world the Monster Games crafted. Yes, it's a backwater cloister of random trailers and run-down junk yards, but it's also presented with a no-frills approach. Instead of jumping from place to place (at least at first), you actually drive to the destination, hanging a right or a left out of your trailer's driveway and down the road to a race, an Eve, the garage, or what have you. It's a pretty cool approach, though after a couple of hours, you'll likely make ample use of the game's Jump To feature in the pause menu.
The draw distance is impressive, often letting you crest a hill to see a sprawling vista of farmland and refineries, and while this seems like it would be a bit drab, it adds to the overall feeling of the game. Detailed textures manage to add variety to the racetracks (it's obvious where the racing "lines" are based on the level of wear, even if there's no discernable different in speed or handling), and the damage model is decent, if a little underwhelming -- especially because the stuttery video clips that randomly become unlocked show the cars with an insane about of crumpled, mangled metal that the game just can't quite convey.
The whole game manages an almost silky sheen, with lots of soft particles and slightly blurred objects out a bit on the horizon. It's a little odd at first, but there's something almost elegant about seeing the developers' NASCAR roots at work as a stream of cars take to the field without any real slowdown. The physics in the game are mainly relegated to crashes, which usually have a bit of punch thanks to a healthy dose of screen shake during a big hit, but for smaller objects like signs, the way they tumble to the ground feels a little off; it's obvious things were set up for more girthy objects like bales of hay, tires, and, well, cars.
Aurally, things are a little less glossy. The effects are solid enough, especially in the throaty engines nestled inside the old car frames, and the impacts usually have enough punch to convince your ears that they could've heard a couple thousand pounds of steel meeting in a not-so-gentle embrace, but the announcer during the events often recycles the same set of comments a couple times an Eve, and at times a lead change can happen so quickly, the PS2 doesn't have time to buffer in the comment before it changes back. The idea of having you pick a nickname at the beginning of the career is handy for having the announcer say your name plenty of times, but it's an odd combination to hear a handful of real first and last names, and then your nickname.
By far, though, the most deflated part of the audio experience is in the soundtrack. The songs aren't outright horrible, but you'd better be a fan of the punk/emo genre, because that's more or less what you're going to be hearing... a lot. The same half-dozen or so songs from bands like Thrice and Sum 41 play incessantly, and even through I'm plenty happy to hear this kind of music, it started to get old after the first dozen or so times I heard a song. There's no way to turn off the music or skip a track while in-game (all options are set up at home, so no tweaking during a race if you want to shut that announcer up), which will likely cause a bit of frustration for anyone not taken with emo rage music.
There's also the matter of online play. I don't usually care one way or the other if a game has online play unless it shows itself to be an indispensable part of the gameplay experience, or is lacking where it would've given the game some great replay and some serious legs. Eve of Destruction falls squarely into the latter category, where it would have helped keep the game just a bit more fresh once the career mode is over.
It also would have helped pull the game out from the slightly-above-average bog it's mired in right now. Eve of Destruction is impressively addictive, and manages a quiet grace about itself in presentation -- despite being about smashing the crap out of every moving thing in sight. It's just that without any online options, very little in the way customization and a set of races that towards the end of the game begin to feel a bit stale, it's hard to recommend this as a full-price option. If Atari is smart, they'll let this drop to a more attractive price (like, say, $20) and at that point, there's literally no reason why it wouldn't be money well spend. Until then, though, perhaps those dying for demolition derby fix would do best to give a rent.
There's been a noticeable dearth of good smash and bash games since the boys and girls over at Reflections decided to take things in the Driver and Stuntman directions, though it certainly seems the team at Monster Games has filled that void nicely. The developers' pedigree is readily apparent (the team previously tackled the NASCAR Heat and Dirt to Daytona games for Infogrames (now Atari), but things have leapt off the track a bit, and for those not content to let the concept of constantly turning the wheel in one direction for a couple hours slowly melt their higher brain functions (yet can't shake that need for a jug o' 'shine and some down n' dirty racing), there's a lot to like about Eve of Destruction.
I doubt there was more to tacking on the Test Drive name than adding some brand recognition, but it ends up being a nice fit. Chronicling an up-and-comer's rise from backroads dirt track derbys in compact cars to filled-to-the-brim arenas in couple-ton rolling wrecking balls is pulled off quite well, especially considering the amount of variety in the events.
The bulk of the game takes place in Eves (more on those in a second), but things actually start when you're dropped into a rural clump of trailers, garages, salvage yards and diners, all connected mainly by dirt road. This should give you a pretty good idea of what kind of flavor the game goes after; it's not crazy to think the programmers chased those thousands of lines of code with a long pull from a can of Bud. In between Eves, the "town" provides a handful of distractions like bets on short races with other drivers in the area, a couple of time trial-like courses that give you progressively more cash for finishing the race in less and less time, a salvage yard that you can pull new cars from, as well as a garage to upgrade your junkers.
By and large, however, you'll be competing in Eves to boost both your cash reserves and increase your reputation rank, which in turn unlocks more events and a few special cars for the multiplayer and non-career Action mode. The Eves are comprised of a handful events like figure eights (where the track criss-crosses itself for maximum crash potential), jump courses (read: a big jump populates some part of the course to cause some nice flips should you take the jump wrong), and shortcut races (the track offers two paths, one for the people falling behind to cut into the leaders, and another that forces a wide arc), while suicide races force two rows of cars to drive in opposite directions around the track. The gauntlet (where you must take a hearse for a few laps while the rest of the pack tries to slam you into oblivion), and trailer races (where you have something attached to the back of your car, and destroying it destroys your car) round out the racing experience.
Then there are the derby events like wrangling, (you're timed by how fast you can take down a small, maneuverable car), push off (where you're trying to push other cars out of a ring) and good ol' fashioned destruction derby (just end the race as the last one alive). These events are cobbled together in 25 different Eves, with the events randomly being mixed and matched (though you'll almost always have a couple races and a push-off or derby in every Eve), winning these by placing high in the individual events nets you more cash, and from there you can buy a new car or juice up your machine with one of three very basic upgrades that boost speed, handling or toughness.
The former two upgrades play more of a part in the stuff you do outside of Eves, namely throwing down some cash on illegal races with ranked players or trying to haul your car around a sandy construction yard obstacle course. The latter upgrade is probably the most important overall, since regardless of how fast your car is, if it can't take any hits, it'll be the first one out during a demo derby.
That's essentially all there is to the game. Time trials and drag races provide a basic bit of distraction from the main event Eves, and actually playing through the entire career gets you some great unlocked vehicles (hearses, busses, etc.), and unlocks more modes, but it's really just filler for the game's namesake. What's odd is that it's really nothing particularly spectacular, gameplay-wise, but the combination of potential for huge hits, the variety in races and the instant playability of the different events means it's incredibly hard to stop playing.
This is no doubt helped by the world the Monster Games crafted. Yes, it's a backwater cloister of random trailers and run-down junk yards, but it's also presented with a no-frills approach. Instead of jumping from place to place (at least at first), you actually drive to the destination, hanging a right or a left out of your trailer's driveway and down the road to a race, an Eve, the garage, or what have you. It's a pretty cool approach, though after a couple of hours, you'll likely make ample use of the game's Jump To feature in the pause menu.
The draw distance is impressive, often letting you crest a hill to see a sprawling vista of farmland and refineries, and while this seems like it would be a bit drab, it adds to the overall feeling of the game. Detailed textures manage to add variety to the racetracks (it's obvious where the racing "lines" are based on the level of wear, even if there's no discernable different in speed or handling), and the damage model is decent, if a little underwhelming -- especially because the stuttery video clips that randomly become unlocked show the cars with an insane about of crumpled, mangled metal that the game just can't quite convey.
The whole game manages an almost silky sheen, with lots of soft particles and slightly blurred objects out a bit on the horizon. It's a little odd at first, but there's something almost elegant about seeing the developers' NASCAR roots at work as a stream of cars take to the field without any real slowdown. The physics in the game are mainly relegated to crashes, which usually have a bit of punch thanks to a healthy dose of screen shake during a big hit, but for smaller objects like signs, the way they tumble to the ground feels a little off; it's obvious things were set up for more girthy objects like bales of hay, tires, and, well, cars.
Aurally, things are a little less glossy. The effects are solid enough, especially in the throaty engines nestled inside the old car frames, and the impacts usually have enough punch to convince your ears that they could've heard a couple thousand pounds of steel meeting in a not-so-gentle embrace, but the announcer during the events often recycles the same set of comments a couple times an Eve, and at times a lead change can happen so quickly, the PS2 doesn't have time to buffer in the comment before it changes back. The idea of having you pick a nickname at the beginning of the career is handy for having the announcer say your name plenty of times, but it's an odd combination to hear a handful of real first and last names, and then your nickname.
By far, though, the most deflated part of the audio experience is in the soundtrack. The songs aren't outright horrible, but you'd better be a fan of the punk/emo genre, because that's more or less what you're going to be hearing... a lot. The same half-dozen or so songs from bands like Thrice and Sum 41 play incessantly, and even through I'm plenty happy to hear this kind of music, it started to get old after the first dozen or so times I heard a song. There's no way to turn off the music or skip a track while in-game (all options are set up at home, so no tweaking during a race if you want to shut that announcer up), which will likely cause a bit of frustration for anyone not taken with emo rage music.
There's also the matter of online play. I don't usually care one way or the other if a game has online play unless it shows itself to be an indispensable part of the gameplay experience, or is lacking where it would've given the game some great replay and some serious legs. Eve of Destruction falls squarely into the latter category, where it would have helped keep the game just a bit more fresh once the career mode is over.
It also would have helped pull the game out from the slightly-above-average bog it's mired in right now. Eve of Destruction is impressively addictive, and manages a quiet grace about itself in presentation -- despite being about smashing the crap out of every moving thing in sight. It's just that without any online options, very little in the way customization and a set of races that towards the end of the game begin to feel a bit stale, it's hard to recommend this as a full-price option. If Atari is smart, they'll let this drop to a more attractive price (like, say, $20) and at that point, there's literally no reason why it wouldn't be money well spend. Until then, though, perhaps those dying for demolition derby fix would do best to give a rent.
