After a dozen races or so on the same track, it can become a little tiresome, but this is also how you learn the best shortcuts in each map. You’ll become very familiar with the tracks, not only because you’ll be racing on them numerous times repeatedly, but because there’s only a handful of them. Once you start losing though, no one will want you to represent them and you’ll be back on your own. Start winning enough races in a row and sponsors will want you to race for them, giving your car a special paint job and letting you earn even more bonus money. As you start winning events you’ll unlock new car decals, parts, and even cars for purchase, and eventually you’ll have so much money in the bank that you won’t have any issues affording any upgrades or new cars after a few hours of play.
There are even random subquests in each event for you to try and complete for a chance at earning even more money, like destroying a certain amount of enemies with mines or making sure a certain racer doesn’t place in the top 3. You’ll earn money for not only winning, but destroying opponents, smashing objects, and even squishing chickens. Don’t expect any type of simulation racing, but the cars handle well, can be upgraded, and you’ll unlock better cars to purchase the further you progress. Sometimes with smaller name racers the steering mechanics can be all over the place, usually more frustrating than fun, but that’s not the case here with Gas Guzzlers Extreme. I was surprised at how well the game controlled. This causes repetition to kick in, and while there are the odd special events that pop up here and there, I didn’t really enjoy most of these one-off events like capture the flag, but at least there’s an attempt to break up the monotony. Given that you can choose the type of event you want to participate in every time, the career doesn’t feel very structured, as you simply need to grind out enough races until you reach the needed points to try and win the cup. Win those and you earn your reward for that whole tournament, moving onto the next and unlocking new rewards and events.
It takes a while to earn enough points to make your way to the top of the leaderboards which then grants you access to the final tournament, consisting of one of each type of event. The more dangerous the events, especially the ones with weaponry, the more points potential you can earn, whereas standard races are less risky, but you earn less rewards as well. There are multiple types of races and events to participate in, some of which will earn you more or less points based on your standings at the end of each. Vehicular combat isn’t anything new, but Gas Guzzlers Extreme tries to do it with a sense of humor, poking fun at itself in a Duke Nukem or hilarious Arnold parody voice, which I’ll explain shortly.Ĭareer mode is where you’ll be spending the bulk of your racing time, revolving around you earning point sin events to eventually becoming the top earner on the leaderboard. You won’t be worrying about realistic physics, but instead trying to blow your opponents up so you can be first across the finish line, or the last one left in the race. While it has its shortcomings, it brought me back to the days of playing arcade combat racers that paved the way like Carmageddon and Twisted Metal.įor fans of the arcade style of racing, Gas Guzzlers Extreme may not be the most known out there, but it has a lot of potential fun behind the wheel. Case in point, I initially thought Gas Guzzlers Extreme was going to be a play once and be done with it type of game, but alas, it took me by surprise and I ended up enjoying much more than I initially thought I would. Sometimes I’m dead on and know I’m not going to enjoy a game, and other times I’m taken completely by surprise.
Truth be told, for how long I’ve been doing game reviews, I can generally get a good sense of how I’m going to enjoy it even before playing it after watching and reading up on it.