PC Reviews

Gas Guzzlers: Combat Carnage Review

Published

May 29, 2012

It seems with the release of Twisted Metal car combat games having been popping up everywhere like weeds. The latest member to the club is the comically named Gas Guzzlers: Combat Carnage; names say a lot about games with this one telling us that they’re a pretty fun guy to hang with from ‘Gas Guzzler’ but they can get edgy too. The difference with this game from recent ones is that it features an upgrade system for your cars and you’ll come into linear races with a previously selected weapon. It’s honestly more Mario Kart than Twisted Metal really.

Gas Guzzlers: Combat Carnage
Developer: Gamepires
Price: $30
Platform: PC (reviewed)

So Gas Guzzlers has three modes: Classic Race, Battle, and Knockout. Classic is basically exactly what it sounds like with a focus on purely racing your opponents instead of taking them out. Once you unlock your first weapon you’ll be able to jump into Battle and that’s when the ‘Combat Carnage’ part comes in. Besides the various power-up pick-ups you’ll find scattered around the tracks you’ll also have a weapon mounted on your car that you’ll use to clean up anyone in front of you. Knockout is basically the same thing except once you get taken out you’re done. The driving feels pretty tight, but I did feel the breaking/drifting was a bit too loose and would find myself over sliding turns. Even after practicing for a while I still found them looser than they really needed to be; the physics feel like a weird combination of realism and other arcade combat games. You can also fill up a boost meter by doing things like smashing into destructible objects in the environment, killing opponents, or running over chickens. You’ll find various weapons to equip on your car plus various power-ups scattered throughout the tracks themselves. They’re all pretty much what you’d expect in a game like this but I did find the oil slick to become quite annoying since it seems to be the most picked up power;tracks heavy on the shadows also made seeing them a nuisance.Unlike other fast paced car combat games, Gas Guzzlers feels a tad bit slower paced because of the fact that cars can take quite a bit of punishment before exploding. That’s not to say things aren’t still fast paced, it’s just that you shouldn’t expect to see many explosions throughout a race.

There’s a campaign but it’s mostly just going through race after race with the occasional ‘boss’ driver to collect cash to buy more cars/upgrades/guns. An annoyance I quickly noticed was the inclusion of rubber-band AI which continues to prove that when you can’t code proper AI in a driving game, just throw in some rubber-banding instead. There are higher difficulty levels in the campaign with drivers getting more aggressive the higher you have it set, and when I say aggressive I mean it. It’ll feel like all the other drivers got together, decided who they want as their winner, then have the rest of the guys make it their life goal to see to it that the only thing you look at is a wall.

The tracks themselves are fairly generic with your basic forest, desert, snow areas and a few others with shortcuts littered through the tracks.The biggest feature in the game is the car customization. With the money you earn through the campaign you’ll be able to pimp out your car with new rims, some sweet stickers, guns, or upgrades for parts like the engine. As a big customization freak I enjoyed grinding out races to get a new piece for my car, but it also hurt to race the car because your car will get messed up and the only way to fix it is to pay for a repair. The game features a multiplayer component but I’d call it more of a ghost town simulator than a server room. I’ve stopped in multiple times these last few days and it’s been depressingly empty. The games I did manage to get into with a few people were fun enough, but I probably would’ve had a better time sticking to Quick Race.

The graphics are nice enough and the game has a pretty typical rock soundtrack. The voices you can pick for your driver include an Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator who spews various quotes from his movies which makes for some pretty humorous moments. If you can’t stand that voice then I recommend turning it off because the only other voice feels like a middle schooler who just learned about curse words; I enjoy my vulgarities, but even I have my limits.

The Final Word
As a car combat game Gas Guzzlers does the job right, but compared to the competition it’s pretty damn generic. The upgrade system is neat enough, but there really aren’t enough reasons for me to drop $30 on this when I have Twisted Metal or Death Rally who both do the same things Gas Guzzlers can but better. If you’re a PC only player I can’t really think of anything better out on the platform, but console players really shouldn’t waste their time with this.