Review

Death Rally

There is a trend with developers wanting to revisit old titles these days. Nostalgia runs rampant as gamers are treated to HD collections, remakes, and reboots of popular franchises. This is the case with Remedy and the remake of their classic top-down racer, Death Rally!

Death Rally was first released for PC back in ’96. A more modern version was released over iOS/Android last year, recently making the jump back to PC via Steam. While the mobile version was successful, selling over 11 million copies, I was a little worried about it coming back to PC. I mean, the top-down racer genre isn’t in high demand outside of mobile gaming. After spending some time in Death Rally’s world I’ve come to the conclusion that it is definitely worth our time.

Just like before, the game features a story about an outlaw of sorts (your character) being arrested by the sheriff of Anytown, USA. Because of your skillset, he makes a deal with you; enter the Death Rally underground racing circuit in order to flush out Adversary, the King of Death Rally, and you’ll earn your freedom. In order to do that, you’ll have to get the Adversary’s attention by winning races. And…that’s all you really need to know. While there are more story elements, they are so buried underneath the other aspects of this title that their inclusion seems like an afterthought; an excuse to get gamers racing.

This isn’t entirely a bad thing; it’s a racing game after all. What is bad is that this “afterthought” attitude has seeped into the rest of the game. Take the career mode. It’s basically a menu screen showing a bunch of races you can compete in. Each one will be labeled Easy, Medium, or Hard; mostly normal races with some One on One and Deathmatch (a fight, not a race) types popping up from time to time. After each race, the menu is randomized to showcase more race options. The way the game works, you’ll race on the same tracks until you’ve performed well enough for your “fame” to reach a new level. At which point you’ll unlock more tracks that are then added to the randomized list. After reaching certain levels of fame, you’ll unlock a story race. It’s basically the same as the other races, just against story characters. After that, it’s back to the race menu.

The career mode feels like a quick race option that’s normally held for multiplayer. It felt very disjointed; there is no rhyme or reason for the tracks or racers. Early on as I wasn’t sure what I had to do to unlock more of the story. Even though there was some progression, there wasn’t much to go on outside of measured fame. There are no tournaments, racing brackets, or anything depicting an actual “career”. That said, at lot of my concerns were put on the backburner once an actual race started. Death Rally’s races are fun, frantic events where being first place is the least of your worries. Surviving long enough to finish a race is often the main goal. There is always something blowing up and/or someone shooting at you, making things more challenging. Don’t worry, you’ll be doing some of the shooting as well. In order to unlock new cars and weapons, you have to find their parts that are dropped from the carcasses of destroyed vehicles. You’re not just fighting to win the race, but also to better equipment. Adding to the fun is the option to open the career races up to people online, replacing the AI opponents with real people. This is when things become really crazy as human players way more dangerous to race against!

Death Rally is a fun game, especially if you are a fan of this racing sub-genre. There are a decent amount of cars and weapons to unlock, the tracks are well designed, and it has additive gameplay. The menu structure leaves a lot to be desired though. Mainly due to the fact that the career mode is really the only mode featured (multiplayer can be toggled on and off). That shouldn’t keep you from playing though. Again, once the racing starts, everything else is a blur!