Revving Up For Something Big
It has felt like Wreckreation is the game that Three Fields Entertainment have been wanting to make since their inception.
This is a studio formed from alumni of Criterion Games, who created the Burnout series. And that Burnout DNA has been in pretty much every single release for the studio. We’ve had the slightly-leftfield-but-still-about-causing-as-much-destruction-and-chaos-as-possible Dangerous Golf, the return of Crash mode from the Burnout series in Danger Zone and Danger Zone 2, and the Road Rage events in Dangerous Driving.
So, the signs have always been there, and Wreckreation is no exception. By far the biggest undertaking of this studio to date, it naturally then only makes sense to channel the biggest Burnout game, Burnout Paradise. With an ace or two up its sleeve for good measure though.
Wreckreation is an open-world racer where going fast is only half the battle. Your opponents fight dirty, and your only option is to join them. Ramming your opponents off the road, known as a Takedown, is all par for the course here.
Off To A Flying Start
Wreckreation starts by throwing you into a Sky Track race; a little taster for something that you won’t be unlocking for a while. These events take place high above the world on custom tracks that you will be able to create for yourself and your friends, but all that comes a bit further down the line. After crash landing back onto terra firma, the world of Wreckreation is yours to explore however you wish.
Events are split into races, road rages and Wreckonings. Races should be self-explanatory and are a mixture of lap-based and point-to-point. Road rages take one of the best elements of the Burnout series and somehow ruin them, but more on that later. Finally, Wreckonings are car specific challenges that, if you manage to complete, will reward you with an improved version of the car.
Bigger Is Not Always Better
Wreckreation boasts a 400km2 world, but bigger is not always better. Not since 2009’s Fuel boasted of a 14400km2 environment has an open-world racer felt so empty. Too often was I driving along lengthy winding roads just trying to find an event. Like Burnout Paradise, these can be found whilst driving around, but unlike that, there are too many moments of downtime where not very much happens. At one point I saw some hot-air balloons illuminating the dusk sky, that reminded me of Forza Horizon. Unfortunately, my next thought was that I wished I was playing that instead.
To alleviate the feeling of emptiness, Wreckreation is filled with things to smash through. Namely 255 billboards and 322 gates. The gates just require you to drive through them to count, but some of the billboards require a stunt to be performed at the same time for them to count, as denoted by a number – indicating degrees in a flip or spin – or some other trick indicator. All-in-all though, it isn’t anywhere near enough.
Occasionally you will see a hammer and a spanner crossed over each other, floating in the air. These are Live Mix Unlocks, and will reward you with a new item to place in the world once collected. Typically, finding these will require you to go into Live Mix itself and place a ramp or other toy into the world in order to get to the pickup. It is worth doing because you will unlock bigger and better items to then place into the world to make it uniquely yours. Only by finding these items can you discover the biggest ramps, loops and more to send your car flying in all kinds of directions. But you can also unlock portable toilets and beach umbrellas with these pickups, so sometimes the payout isn’t worth the effort.
In The Mix
Live Mix itself is certainly an interesting idea, and it is clear the hope would be to populate these worlds with some truly outlandish designs. The problem is, the execution of it is somewhat lacking at the moment.
It is quite simple to place an item, which is appreciated, but sometimes you have to do it from a distance, because the camera does a terrible job of either zooming in, or the object starts so far away from where you want to place it. Just because I can see a big mountain several miles away on the horizon, does not mean I want to place a beach umbrella on it. By default, these objects you want to place should start where you launch Live Mix, and this simple fix would save a lot of hassle.
Plenty That Needs Buffing Out
There are some other, big issues that need to be fixed as well. Takedowns are a major element of both the racing and road rage events, but each one feels a bit of a lottery. Completing a takedown will momentarily have a cinematic camera showing the vehicle you’ve just run off the road crashing and flipping out, and it is never not boring to see that. Returning to the racing though and I have had the minimap disappear for a few seconds every time, sometimes not at all. I once also completed a double takedown to remain in first place, only to return to the game on the other straight of an oval track, in last place.
Checkpoints are also in need of an overhaul. It’s a cool idea having the word ‘Checkpoint’ physically splashed on the road for you to smash through, but the window for them feels a bit too small. With drifting being such a major component of Wreckreation – this is an arcade racer after all – the game wants you to drift round corners. It also wants you to hit that checkpoint with military precision if it is on a bend, and these elements cannot work together. With the rubberbanding that goes on in every event, having to return to a checkpoint is a sure-fire way to lose an event.
It would also help if drifting didn’t feel like it was also down to the RNG gods and would be more responsive.
But what about just rewinding to make sure you take the corner better? Well, amazingly, Wreckreation doesn’t have a rewind feature. I cannot fathom why that is.
Road Raging
And I just cannot abide by the new Road Rage events. This is a guy that spent literally days playing Road Rage on Burnout 3: Takedown, where it was a case of surviving for as long as possible on a set route. In Wreckreation, each Road Rage event has a start point, but you are free to take any route you wish. That’s fine, I guess. But each event now comes with a timer that can only be increased with Takedowns, and even then, these time bonuses stop after a while. No, let me get 50/60/70 Takedowns on one event so that all that is left of our cars when finished is four wheels, axis and an engine.
But the worst thing is the Penalty Road Rage events. Here you have a standard Road Rage event, except that one of the cars is highlighted red, because you cannot Takedown that one. But this car can – and definitely will – position itself between you and the other cars for the entire duration of the event, goading you until the timer runs out.
Three Fields Entertainment’s biggest undertaking by far, Wreckreation feels a bit like a budget Burnout. There are interesting ideas with the Live Mix stuff to completely make your world feel unique, but when an open-world racer feels this empty, should it really fall on us to populate it?
It’s also the overall lack of polish that is an issue. It feels a bit early access at the moment, but bug fixes and patches can only do so much when the world is so lifeless, and the events themselves just don’t feel that much fun either.
Important Links
Drive, Build, Tweak – Wreckreation Hands You the Keys to a HUGE NEW World! – https://www.thexboxhub.com/drive-build-tweak-wreckreation-hands-you-the-keys-to-a-huge-new-world/
Wreckreation, from the Creators of Burnout, Crashes onto Xbox, PS5, PC This October – https://www.thexboxhub.com/wreckreation-from-the-creators-of-burnout-crashes-onto-xbox-ps5-pc-this-october/
Buy Wreckreation on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/wreckreation/9N0LLB6PG0R4/0010
