Crashday

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a game by Atari Co.
Platform: PC (2006)
User Rating: 8.8/10 - 8 votes
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See also: Racing Games

Despite The Somewhat serious implications of real wrecked cars (we're talking serious injury to adverts for car insurance), the virtual smashing of vehicles has always been fun - a sentiment shared by the creator of Crashday, a hi-octane game that believes a car isn't a car until it's hurtling through the air in several thousand pieces.

Amazingly though, the origins of this sleek, adrenalin-fuelled racer came when its creators were proud owners of bumfluff beards - at a tender 13 years of age. "Back in 1997, Crashday started as a hobby project of my friend Jan Bodenstein and me, explains project leader Robert Clemens. "Our dream was to create a game that blends the classic stunts and its track editor, with the wrecking action of Carmageddon"

In short, we're talking about some serious pubescent passion that went into developing the title - you can almost smell the inability to talk to pretty girls.

Stunted Growth

"After a few years of development (without any budget) and lots of effort, we ended up with something that was good enough to start considering a commercial release. At that point we were really running out of resources, so in 2003 we joined forces with Hamburg game development studio Replay Studios to finish work on Crashday."

At this point, I think it's only fair we put into words what everybody is thinking: the huge half-pipes; the loop-the-loops; the physically improbable stunts; this is TrackMania isn't it?

"Well, both TrackMania and Crashday focus on easy accessibility and feature a track editor, but that's where similarities end," continues Clemens. "We try to avoid comparing Crashday too much to any other racing game since it's rather a new breed - a crazy mix of racing, speed and destruction that allows you to build your own mad courses. It's a blend of different action racing games: the casual gameplay and destructive fun of Burnout, the open terrain and wrecking action of Carmageddon, a track editor similar to TrackMania: and the game's Stunt mode, which is best compared to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, only with cars."

Despite the fact that Crashday is melding together so many different ideas from so many different games (what with a UT2004-on-wheels feel to vehicular deathmatch), it still feels different enough to warrant its own existence. With a huge amount of customisability, Crashday will at the very least be a huge pile of something, and our bet is that something won't be putrid faeces. And seeing as it's being made by two men who must have sacrificed no end of school discos to get it to us, that's nothing but a good thing,

Download Crashday

PC

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP

Game Reviews

What Were You doing in 1997? Britpop was still simmering, Michael Owen had yet to score that goal, and PC gaming was heralding a brave new dawn of accelerated graphics. Meanwhile, in Germany, the developer of Crashday was putting together some initial concepts for the game. Had the company managed to get it out of the door in the last millennium, it might have got away with it. As it is, it's blighted with such late 1990s traits as the much-maligned lens flare, the then ubiquitous kaleidoscopic graphical effect. And to complete the late '90s vibe, Crashday claims to be a latter day version of the seminal Carmageddon. We might as well all party like it's 1999.

Except it's $29.99, and as such is in the realms of full-price software. Despite the astonishingly lengthy development time, it never really feels that way, not least due to the erratic translation, arbitrary spelling, and sexist humour - not to mention the half-baked narrative that attempts to justify the action.

Burning Car

There's no need for it. Crashday is simply a collection of mainly unrealistic driving events, most of which involve cars being explosively destroyed. But despite the Carmageddon claims, Crashday is an entirely sanitised affair where dying horrifically in a ball of fire simply involves an inconvenience of a few seconds. Some tried and tested concepts are in place, from straightforward checkpoint races to knockout races, both of which can usually be negotiated through little more than judicious use of nitro and handbrake. There's also the perennial lift from the film Speed, with a bomb strapped to your roof and a track to negotiate without dropping below a certain velocity. Of more interest is the team-based Capture The Flag game, which while still highly entertaining on your own, does hint at the game's multiplayer leanings.

As indeed does the ability to shoot other drivers. The concept of guns on cars rarely works, and this is largely the case here, proving a (literally) hit-and-miss affair. Turning a car to fire a weapon is a lot more unwieldy than turning a person, although if you catch someone full in the radiator with a missile it can be mildly satisfying.

As for the stunt sections that the game prides itself on, they're little more than Tony Hawk's in a car. Spectacular though the action is, while landing a 360-degree turn on a plank is challenging enough, attempting to do the same in a fast-moving car is vaguely equivalent to pissing into the wind.

Machine-Gun Style

All of the above are linked together through a spurious career mode, which enables you to customise your cars with the obligatory performance and cosmetic upgrades. The key difference from the likes of Need For Speed is that for a few thousand dollars you can strap an automatic machine gun on the front of your car.

Considering there's nine years' worth of work here, there's relatively little in terms of content, and you'll tear through the career mode in a couple of sessions. In fact, we'd be surprised if there was as much as one hour's gameplay for every year of development. While it lasts, however, it's mainly competent, even occasionally exhilarating, with further value added if you can take advantage of the multiplayer aspect. But when the development team say in the credits, it's been a "long and stressful time", you really feel what they're saying.

Snapshots and Media

PC Screenshots

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