Death Track®: Resurrection

I wanted this one to be a hidden gem. Post-apocalyptic combat racing across ten real-world cities - Bangkok, Tokyo, Vatican City, Moscow, and more - with primary, secondary, and rear-mounted weapons you can mix and match before each race? That pitch has Saturday night tournament energy written all over it. Unfortunately, the moment you touch the throttle, the dream starts falling apart. The handling is the central problem that everything else trips over. Cars feel weightless and unresponsive in ways that actively work against you: clip a wall at a slight angle and you stop dead instead of bouncing off, hit a ramp even slightly off-centre and you flip rather than catch air, and at random moments the steering simply stops registering input altogether. The game has a known bug where running above 60 FPS breaks the nitro system entirely, so if you are on a modern rig, cap your frame rate before you launch or the boost mechanic is just dead. Spongy controls on their own are forgivable in an arcade racer; spongy controls combined with AI that rubber-bands aggressively on even low difficulty settings and a finish requirement of top three (or first, in some modes) just to keep your race earnings is something else. Players who loved the original 1989 DOS game should be warned: this is a much flashier, much busier sequel that layers on destructible environments, cinematic slow-motion ramp cuts, and hoverbot hazards without ever nailing the pure weapon-and-racing loop that made the original click. The weapons setup is the one area that delivers some genuine fun. You slot a primary, secondary, and rear weapon onto your car before each race - options include EMP rockets, mines, and remotely controlled robots - and the mouse-aim system for targeting opponents actually works well. Blowing up trackside landmarks in cities for bonus credits is a neat touch, and Challenge mode tasks like destroying a set number of opponents within a single lap add some structure beyond straight racing. Scenario mode strings races together with live-action newscast cutscenes that are campy enough to raise a smile. Tournament mode covers Europe, America, and Asia cups, and one-off races plus drag races round out the mode list. There is content here. The art direction on the tracks - rainy Bangkok, snow-covered Moscow, overgrown San Diego - genuinely impresses for a 2009 release. Here is the co-op question I always ask: forget it. The PC version ships with zero multiplayer, no split-screen, nothing. The PS3 port had split-screen and online, but that version came with worse physics and worse controls, so neither version crosses the line for a group session. This is a solo-only experience, and the frustration curve makes it a tough sell even for patient solo players. Modern stability is also shaky - crashes on some hardware, a publisher launcher bolted on after the fact, and the frame-rate-locked nitro bug make the technical side feel rough in 2025. If you are a diehard fan of the vehicular combat genre and have cleared Gas Guzzlers Extreme and Carmageddon: Reincarnation, there is enough atmosphere and weapon variety here for a curious weekend run at budget price. Everyone else should temper expectations hard. The bones of something interesting are visible, but the car physics bury them.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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