Gas Guzzlers Extreme

I've got a soft spot for the kind of game that nobody talks about until Saturday night when everyone's arguing over what to put on. Gas Guzzlers Extreme is exactly that game. It's a combat racer from Gamepires that launched on PC back in 2013, sits at 86% positive on Steam with over four thousand reviews, and absolutely nails one specific thing: the feeling of blasting a rocket launcher at someone mid-corner while sliding toward the finish line in a car called the "Dogg Dyper." The structure is classic arcade-racer simplicity. You start with a Micro GT-sized slug of a car, grind through the Fenderbender Cup, earn cash, and slowly work toward 18 vehicles spread across three tournament tiers. Seven race modes cover a solid spread: Power Race for clean lap racing, Battle Race for weapons-on chaos, Knockout for last-car-standing elimination, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Last Man Standing, and a zombie survival horde mode that makes absolutely no sense and is absolutely worth playing. Twelve weapons round out the arsenal, ranging from shotguns and machine guns to a guided rocket launcher that only works in race modes, which is a design quirk that somehow works. Side objectives in each event, like taking someone out from behind or leading every lap, give you an extra layer to chase beyond just podium finishes. The progression gate can feel stingy early on, and some players hit a wall in the opening cup where unlocks come too slowly. Stick with it past that hump and the game opens up considerably. On PC, the controls are responsive across keyboard, gamepad, and racing wheel, with full force feedback support confirmed. The physics land somewhere between arcade float and light simulation, enough weight to make sideswipes feel satisfying without punishing you for not owning a wheel. Gamepires overhauled the engine in 2016, and the PC version runs noticeably smoother for it. The track designs across 40 variations and 8 environments are functional rather than inspired, and the textures show the game's age, but damage modeling is genuinely good: lose your hood, it's gone for the rest of the race. Car health as the race-end condition adds real tension on higher difficulties. Here is the part that matters most for the Saturday night crowd: the PC version does have online multiplayer, which sets it meaningfully apart from the console ports that shipped without it. Local split-screen is not present, so the couch co-op dream stays a dream. Online lobbies can be quiet given the game's age, but AI bots fill empty slots automatically, which keeps pickup games from dying in the lobby screen. The humor is juvenile, the voice lines are Arnold and Duke Nukem knock-offs, and the rock soundtrack is aggressively generic. None of that will bother you when a Katyusha mini-rocket launcher knocks someone out of first place on the final stretch. This genre is starved for options on PC, and Gas Guzzlers fills that gap without apology. Riley, Scout Team