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"[GAME] Wrecked: Revenge Revisited (XBLA/PSN)"

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Wed 04/04/12 at 20:38
Regular
"I like turtles"
Posts: 5,368
2004’s Mashed (AKA Drive To Survive) was most definitely one of my favourite games of the last console generation, it was a third person racer very much in the Micro Machines mould. It’s now 8 years later and the wait for its successor is finally over, Wrecked: Revenge Revisited is here and I’ll be honest it was my most anticipated title of 2012. In fact I didn’t even download the trial version, I just bought it straight off which is something that I have never done before with any Xbox Live Arcade title. With the original Mashed development team (Supersonic games) behind it surely it couldn’t possibly let us down?

For those who have never played the original here is brief description of the game, you race against a group of opponents and these can be eliminated by using a selection of weapons which you collect as you race. You can also collect a power up which gives you a short term performance boost or you can take a short cut in order to gain an advantage. Short cuts usually carry a penalty if you get them wrong though, there could be something like a huge drop off area hidden around the corner which means that you generally need to be very precise when taking one. Whoever gets to the front of the pack and pulls away gains a point and there is score table shown on screen at all times. Whoever hits the score limit first wins the round, if no player manages to achieve this then the game goes into a sudden death mode to decide the winner. The main idea is to win at all costs, playing nice and fair will get you nowhere in the world of Mashed!

I’ll get the audio and visual aspects of the game out of the way first, the game looks fine, it’s basically Mashed in HD. It runs fast and smooth and with no real issues, the cars (which are user definable) also look bright and well defined. Graphically the game looks perfectly fine but it’s nothing ground breaking. Audio wise things aren’t so impressive, the cars sound a little feeble as do the weapon’s, surely some roaring V8’s mixed with the sound of exploding mortars etc. wouldn’t have been too difficult to achieve? Also the games taunt system (which is used to wind up other racers) is pretty pathetic, pressing this feature will get your driver to say things like ‘’I was with your mom last night, she says hi’’, this feature doesn’t really add anything to the game to be honest, although I did come across players who seemed to want to set it off every 30 seconds or so which I found extremely annoying. A taunt mute feature is something which would not have amiss in my opinion.

Right, onto the game itself, after all this is supposed to be the Mashed that we all know and love isn’t it? The design of the tracks themselves is actually very good, most of them borrow heavily from those featured in the original game although this time around you are limited to a choice of just 6. A further 2 tracks are available as DLC and these were released on the very same day as the game itself! I have never seen this done before and to my mind suggests that Supersonic knew that there were not enough tracks in this game. Apart from the fact that they really should have been included in the game, hardly anyone I have played against seems to have bought them, so unless you intend to play a lot of local multiplayer games they are probably not worth purchasing. The selection of cars is pretty restrictive and other than changing the appearance of your vehicle it doesn’t seem to make much difference which one you select as they all seem to handle exactly the same. Perhaps having one car which accelerated very quickly but was hard to control and one which handled well but was more robust or a little bit slower might have been a good idea? The weapons are very much a hit and miss affair as they do not seem to be very well balanced at all. For example the ball and chain is very powerful and usually wipes out your opponents with one hit as is the shocker which seriously curtails your opponents progress as it renders their vehicles uncontrollable, but the machine gun is virtually useless and my favourite weapon from the original game, the oil slick is strangely not included in the new version.

The most important aspect of Wrecked: Revenge Revisited is the obviously the gameplay, which is after all what Mashed was all about. The single player modes in this game are strangely restricted to a series of driving challenges, some of which are pretty straight forward while others are just plain crazy. The final challenge is just so ridiculously difficult that it’s just no fun whatsoever, you have a bomb strapped to your car and you need to navigate the course within a designated time limit without touching anything (or the bomb will detonate). Sounds okay so far but it’s on a level with large ice patches, huge drop off areas and obstacles such as gigantic pendulums and a ramp that you need to be millimetre perfect to clear. It’s just so incredibly difficult and unforgiving that it’s basically down to pure luck whether you somehow manage to clear it, you may as well just close your eyes and use the force! You have 1 life and there are no checkpoints, it took me 3 nights of solid playing to clear this challenge but so far I have only spoke to 1 other player who has managed to beat it, most people I have spoken to seem to have become totally frustrated and given up. Oh, and one more thing, you cannot race at all in any single player mode because for some inexplicable reason Supersonic have decided not to include any AI in this game. This also means that if only 2 people play in any multiplayer mode they can only race against each other. The original Mashed did have AI racers so it didn’t matter if there were only 1, 2 or 3 players as there were still always 4 racers as the numbers were automatically made up with bots. I really cannot stress how disappointing it is to play this game with a lesser number of cars, it really does kill the fun.

Wrecked: Revenge Revisited does have one redeeming factor though as unlike its predecessor it can be played online. After discovering that race battles could not be played in the games single player mode I had really hoped that this feature would at least give the game some redemption and it might well have done if the damn game actually worked online! The first 2 nights I attempted to play Wrecked: Revenge Revisited online I failed to find a single game on it. I was genuinely shocked as this was the first 2 days that the game was released, what is it going to be like in a few months time? Anyway, after some perseverance I finally did get a few games on it and it was basically horrendous. I experienced terrible lagging, dodgy collision detection and found the game basically unplayable. I don’t know if someone had a poor connection but all the other players were complaining of exactly the same issues. I have played it again since online and have not noticed any great improvement to be honest. Another issue I experienced was as a game host I could not seem to change tracks once the race had finished. In the end all the players had to back out of the room so I could start a new one with a different track selected. A feature to race multiple tracks in a championship mode would be a welcome addition but unfortunately there does not seem to be any way to do this either. Another issue I have had playing this game online is with unsporting players, if they are losing they simply leave as there is no forfeit for doing so, this has happened to me quite a few times and it’s very annoying as it ruins everyone’s game. Another thing some unsporting players do is when they start directly in front of you they hit reverse as the game begins in an attempt to push you straight into the knock out zone, simply disabling reverse gear for the first few seconds of a game would prevent this. Also on some tracks people barge into you basically before you even have chance to get going, in an attempt to knock you off track. I’m fully aware that the idea of the game is to play dirty to win but this really can become extremely frustrating, choosing start points where this couldn’t happen or having retaining walls which disappear after the first 10 seconds of a start point would be a really welcome feature. Right, so what else in the game is broken?, I would say the games camera angles for sure as they are just crazy. As you attempt to navigate certain tricky parts of a track they seem to randomly zoom in and out which is really annoying and I would say pretty unnecessary. It’s really frustrating when you crash or lose ground simply because the camera has speedily panned out and prevented you from seeing where the hell you were supposed to be going. I’m really not sure what the developers were trying to achieve with this feature to be honest?

OK, so what is actually good about this game? Well this is the question I have been repeatedly asking myself since buying it, Wrecked: Revenge Revisited is so tantalizingly close to being good it’s untrue. If it was basically awful I could have handled that, but it isn’t, it’s like Mashed which has been tinkered with George Lucas style and not 1 of its many changes are for the better. I would imagine that fans of the original game simply wanted the old Mashed that we all know and love in glorious HD with a few extra tracks and an online multiplayer mode that actually worked, how hard would it have been to come with that? Supersonic games had a reasonably straight forward task here and I just can’t believe that they appear to have messed up so badly. The only time that Wrecked: Revenge Revisited really works is when it’s played with 3 or 4 players on the same console but other than that it’s just a massive letdown. I have recently been told that the games developers are inviting constructive comments on this game via their Facebook page with a view to doing some updates. I really hope that they listen to these comments and attempt to fix the games many problems, as despite its multiple issues there really is a great, fun game lurking somewhere deep inside Wrecked: Revenge Revisited.

5/10
Wed 04/04/12 at 20:38
Regular
"I like turtles"
Posts: 5,368
2004’s Mashed (AKA Drive To Survive) was most definitely one of my favourite games of the last console generation, it was a third person racer very much in the Micro Machines mould. It’s now 8 years later and the wait for its successor is finally over, Wrecked: Revenge Revisited is here and I’ll be honest it was my most anticipated title of 2012. In fact I didn’t even download the trial version, I just bought it straight off which is something that I have never done before with any Xbox Live Arcade title. With the original Mashed development team (Supersonic games) behind it surely it couldn’t possibly let us down?

For those who have never played the original here is brief description of the game, you race against a group of opponents and these can be eliminated by using a selection of weapons which you collect as you race. You can also collect a power up which gives you a short term performance boost or you can take a short cut in order to gain an advantage. Short cuts usually carry a penalty if you get them wrong though, there could be something like a huge drop off area hidden around the corner which means that you generally need to be very precise when taking one. Whoever gets to the front of the pack and pulls away gains a point and there is score table shown on screen at all times. Whoever hits the score limit first wins the round, if no player manages to achieve this then the game goes into a sudden death mode to decide the winner. The main idea is to win at all costs, playing nice and fair will get you nowhere in the world of Mashed!

I’ll get the audio and visual aspects of the game out of the way first, the game looks fine, it’s basically Mashed in HD. It runs fast and smooth and with no real issues, the cars (which are user definable) also look bright and well defined. Graphically the game looks perfectly fine but it’s nothing ground breaking. Audio wise things aren’t so impressive, the cars sound a little feeble as do the weapon’s, surely some roaring V8’s mixed with the sound of exploding mortars etc. wouldn’t have been too difficult to achieve? Also the games taunt system (which is used to wind up other racers) is pretty pathetic, pressing this feature will get your driver to say things like ‘’I was with your mom last night, she says hi’’, this feature doesn’t really add anything to the game to be honest, although I did come across players who seemed to want to set it off every 30 seconds or so which I found extremely annoying. A taunt mute feature is something which would not have amiss in my opinion.

Right, onto the game itself, after all this is supposed to be the Mashed that we all know and love isn’t it? The design of the tracks themselves is actually very good, most of them borrow heavily from those featured in the original game although this time around you are limited to a choice of just 6. A further 2 tracks are available as DLC and these were released on the very same day as the game itself! I have never seen this done before and to my mind suggests that Supersonic knew that there were not enough tracks in this game. Apart from the fact that they really should have been included in the game, hardly anyone I have played against seems to have bought them, so unless you intend to play a lot of local multiplayer games they are probably not worth purchasing. The selection of cars is pretty restrictive and other than changing the appearance of your vehicle it doesn’t seem to make much difference which one you select as they all seem to handle exactly the same. Perhaps having one car which accelerated very quickly but was hard to control and one which handled well but was more robust or a little bit slower might have been a good idea? The weapons are very much a hit and miss affair as they do not seem to be very well balanced at all. For example the ball and chain is very powerful and usually wipes out your opponents with one hit as is the shocker which seriously curtails your opponents progress as it renders their vehicles uncontrollable, but the machine gun is virtually useless and my favourite weapon from the original game, the oil slick is strangely not included in the new version.

The most important aspect of Wrecked: Revenge Revisited is the obviously the gameplay, which is after all what Mashed was all about. The single player modes in this game are strangely restricted to a series of driving challenges, some of which are pretty straight forward while others are just plain crazy. The final challenge is just so ridiculously difficult that it’s just no fun whatsoever, you have a bomb strapped to your car and you need to navigate the course within a designated time limit without touching anything (or the bomb will detonate). Sounds okay so far but it’s on a level with large ice patches, huge drop off areas and obstacles such as gigantic pendulums and a ramp that you need to be millimetre perfect to clear. It’s just so incredibly difficult and unforgiving that it’s basically down to pure luck whether you somehow manage to clear it, you may as well just close your eyes and use the force! You have 1 life and there are no checkpoints, it took me 3 nights of solid playing to clear this challenge but so far I have only spoke to 1 other player who has managed to beat it, most people I have spoken to seem to have become totally frustrated and given up. Oh, and one more thing, you cannot race at all in any single player mode because for some inexplicable reason Supersonic have decided not to include any AI in this game. This also means that if only 2 people play in any multiplayer mode they can only race against each other. The original Mashed did have AI racers so it didn’t matter if there were only 1, 2 or 3 players as there were still always 4 racers as the numbers were automatically made up with bots. I really cannot stress how disappointing it is to play this game with a lesser number of cars, it really does kill the fun.

Wrecked: Revenge Revisited does have one redeeming factor though as unlike its predecessor it can be played online. After discovering that race battles could not be played in the games single player mode I had really hoped that this feature would at least give the game some redemption and it might well have done if the damn game actually worked online! The first 2 nights I attempted to play Wrecked: Revenge Revisited online I failed to find a single game on it. I was genuinely shocked as this was the first 2 days that the game was released, what is it going to be like in a few months time? Anyway, after some perseverance I finally did get a few games on it and it was basically horrendous. I experienced terrible lagging, dodgy collision detection and found the game basically unplayable. I don’t know if someone had a poor connection but all the other players were complaining of exactly the same issues. I have played it again since online and have not noticed any great improvement to be honest. Another issue I experienced was as a game host I could not seem to change tracks once the race had finished. In the end all the players had to back out of the room so I could start a new one with a different track selected. A feature to race multiple tracks in a championship mode would be a welcome addition but unfortunately there does not seem to be any way to do this either. Another issue I have had playing this game online is with unsporting players, if they are losing they simply leave as there is no forfeit for doing so, this has happened to me quite a few times and it’s very annoying as it ruins everyone’s game. Another thing some unsporting players do is when they start directly in front of you they hit reverse as the game begins in an attempt to push you straight into the knock out zone, simply disabling reverse gear for the first few seconds of a game would prevent this. Also on some tracks people barge into you basically before you even have chance to get going, in an attempt to knock you off track. I’m fully aware that the idea of the game is to play dirty to win but this really can become extremely frustrating, choosing start points where this couldn’t happen or having retaining walls which disappear after the first 10 seconds of a start point would be a really welcome feature. Right, so what else in the game is broken?, I would say the games camera angles for sure as they are just crazy. As you attempt to navigate certain tricky parts of a track they seem to randomly zoom in and out which is really annoying and I would say pretty unnecessary. It’s really frustrating when you crash or lose ground simply because the camera has speedily panned out and prevented you from seeing where the hell you were supposed to be going. I’m really not sure what the developers were trying to achieve with this feature to be honest?

OK, so what is actually good about this game? Well this is the question I have been repeatedly asking myself since buying it, Wrecked: Revenge Revisited is so tantalizingly close to being good it’s untrue. If it was basically awful I could have handled that, but it isn’t, it’s like Mashed which has been tinkered with George Lucas style and not 1 of its many changes are for the better. I would imagine that fans of the original game simply wanted the old Mashed that we all know and love in glorious HD with a few extra tracks and an online multiplayer mode that actually worked, how hard would it have been to come with that? Supersonic games had a reasonably straight forward task here and I just can’t believe that they appear to have messed up so badly. The only time that Wrecked: Revenge Revisited really works is when it’s played with 3 or 4 players on the same console but other than that it’s just a massive letdown. I have recently been told that the games developers are inviting constructive comments on this game via their Facebook page with a view to doing some updates. I really hope that they listen to these comments and attempt to fix the games many problems, as despite its multiple issues there really is a great, fun game lurking somewhere deep inside Wrecked: Revenge Revisited.

5/10
Thu 05/04/12 at 13:21
Staff Moderator
"Meh..."
Posts: 1,474
Hmmm... Seems like one to avoid until its updated and fixed.

Excellent and informative review!
Thu 05/04/12 at 17:09
Regular
"I like turtles"
Posts: 5,368
Thanks Chas! :)

Funnily enough I've just visited the developers Facebook page and there is indeed an email address to sent comments to, might just send them my review!

It's good to know that I'm far from being alone with my views on this much anticipated game, it would seem that there are more than a fair few seriously dissapointed Mashed fans out there and yes I would recommend waiting for the developers to fix this game before buying it in its currrent state.
Mon 16/04/12 at 16:07
Regular
"I like turtles"
Posts: 5,368
I don't know if there are any other Mashed fans on here? (Surely I can't be the only one?)

Anyway, here's little update, the developers have now put up an online survey which literally takes just a couple of minutes to complete. They have promised to act on the findings of this survey and attempt to fix the many issues which plague this game. I'm not sure that all developers would go to this trouble so I think they deserve a bit of support for doing this. If anyone else has played this game then please could you pop on there and share your views, alternatively the developers have invited constructive criticism by email:

[email protected]

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