Destruction AllStars Review (After 100 matches)

 Destruction AllStars Review

Destruction AllStars is a PS5 seclusive brought to us by Lucid Games which released for free as part of the PS Plus subscription in February of 2021. It is a multiplayer vehicular arena combat game with a myriad of bright and diverse characters, which I had hoped would bring a lot of options in gameplay and even play style. Which it sadly does not. It is a fun and enjoyable experience for short amounts of time for the more seasoned gamer, I can see it becoming better known as a causal experience due to how short the matches are. But the gameplay is very surface level, drive car into opponent, get points and repeat. I'm not saying this isn't an enjoyable experience, it's just hard not to think of what else this game could offer to really expand and control the lacking genre of vehicular combat. Games like Twisted Metal and Motorstorm have seemingly disappeared into the Shadow Realm, which leaves an opportunity for something new to really dominate this genre. I'm going to list some positives and negatives to expand upon why I think this title is good and why it isn't at the same time.  

Positives:

    Gameplay

    The gameplay is fairly basic and simple to grasp. You spawn in on foot, which opens like a gameshow and you have to race against other players to grab a vehicle to start your rampage. Quickly you learn that there'll be commentary based upon how well or poorly your playing throughout the match, which also lets you know when your breaker or your hero vehicle is ready to spawn. Your breaker is a player ability which charges over time or is powered by up pink crystals that float on platforms above the chaos that can give you a short burst of a special power which pertains specifically to the hero you are playing as. All players receive a double jump during their breaker, and some characters can drop mines, light a fire under their feet or even go invisible. These breakers are best used when you escape your vehicle right before it explodes giving you an advantage to claim another vehicle. Now every hero vehicle is also very different per character, some shoot flames, have spikes, turn invisible, explode, cut and generally just destroy their opponents much faster than the traditionally plain vehicles you start the matches with. There are also environmental hazards as matches go on, giant blades of death, giant holes and even an entire game mode where the arena itself will start to drop sections of itself as the match goes on. And how can I forget about hijacking other players vehicles, you can try to overtake another vehicle by using basic quick time events as the driver try's to wiggle you off, in which if the hijacker succeeds they can choose to wreck or take over the car. The basic point of the game is to score the most points and as long as you keep hitting, over taking and destroying your opponents while fending them off, you should be off to a good start. 

     

    Characters & Hero Vehicles

    The game boasts a very well rounded cast of 16 diverse characters with unique and hilarious personalities. I'm going to talk about a few of my favorites and their abilities. Shyft is a character that looks a lot like they should be a part of Daft Punk and turns invisible when they're breaker ability is charged. Shyft's hero vehicle also turns invisible and is faster than most other vehicles naturally but has less health as a compromise. Bluefang sports a tiger helmet and reminds me a lot of King from Tekken. His hero vehicle has giant saw blades than one shot almost any other vehicle, which has made him very popular. Tw!nkler10t due to her helmet reminds me a lot of D.VA from Overwatch, her hero vehicle is a cute and very small car shaped like a cat which hits really hard. Another super popular character is Lupita. Her breaker and vehicle have almost the same abilities, they both leave trails of fire behind them as they travel across the arena.

Negatives:

    The game suffers from the lack of content it launched with. There is barely any variety when it comes to arenas per game mode, most of the arenas feel very much the same regardless of where it is located around the world. The gameplay is obviously very repetitive, drive car in other car, get points, win or lose. The game suffers from each game mode feeling too much like each other. Also this is going to be a big one for the game, the network connectivity is pretty bad sometimes, and before you think it, no I don't have bad internet. I've had more than a few times where I was doing well in a match then all of a sudden cars that already drove past me had somehow hit me and I had been destroyed or severely damaged. I know the positive section is really out shining the negatives here when it comes to words written but the negatives here really hold back the game from being more of a hit. 

Conclusion

    Destruction AllStars is a great game to release on PS Plus. It would have been a disaster as a full price launch game. The game shines in what it's trying to do but I can't help but think about what it could be. I miss games like Motorstorm and Twisted Metal as I have already mentioned them in passing. I would love to see a racing mode introduced in the future and more arena's with more of a drastic change in scenery per arena. I feel this game has potential, it has the makings of something great but right now I don't expect many people to get a lot of mileage out of it. I'm currently sitting at 20 hours played and that's fantastic for a PS Plus game. I will say I am proud to see the people behind Goat Simulator make a game like this.