There is a strange irony to be found in Smash ‘n’ Survive. This oddly titled game is the first to come out from Version 2 Games. The developer is a detachment from Zen Technologies Limited, which makes mostly military and driving simulators. Smash ‘n’ Survive is a game that combines military and driving and ends up failing at both. This is from people who create the actual thing for society’s standards. That’s kind of sad.

The vehicular combat title starts well though. A heavy metal song blasts through speakers and cars get mashed into on and other with high force. It’s as if Twisted Metal jumped ship and sided with these guys. Then, the very first interaction catches a snag: An interface glitch strikes an odd first impression that will continue with unresponsive menus in the game. Players take on a campaign of detached missions with simple objectives and collect bounty as a result. This bounty serves as currency to purchase unlocked vehicles in the shop that will require backtracking and waiting each time. It’s a right mess.

Luckily, the visual performance seems to be on par, at least on the surface. A lot of glare gets added to the differing types of cars, giving them a glossy shine. However, taking these on the playing field reveals their plentiful flaws. The faded level designs have the most basic destructible environments and their dated textures show seams everywhere. This is most noticeable when making use of the game’s cheap effects, like dated fire animations getting caught in between tile frames. In addition, a dirt outlining on the screen perfectly shows how detached the car looks from the actual driving area. It’s as if the developers wanted to show how the car’s fixed position drives gameplay.

The final nail in the presentation coffin will come from one of its only good adaptations, once it becomes clear that this game has only one riff. It’s not even one song; this game has 1 singular guitar line, repeating itself over and over. In all fairness, there are a few alterations to it, but these will blend away with the overlapping guitar line mentioned above.

All this could be forgiven as a first attempt at developing were it not that the actual game is plagued with the same grievances. The most unforgivable part is that Smash ‘n’ Survive is virtually impossible to drive. At this point, let’s remind everyone that this is a game about driving cars. Steering is stiff and as unresponsive as all other traits in the game. Cars take the strangest turns and lack consistency when adapting to turns, speed or combat elements. It makes every drive a gamble. In addition, the right stick offers a tilt mechanism that serves as a completely random way to mess up steering.

Let’s for a second assume that the simple, mission-driven game does work to a point and we need to elaborate at this point. Its campaign and versus mode offers a set of different game modes, though not all are as straight forward as explained. These games vary from simple checkpoints to deathmatches and planting bombs. Planting bombs does have a unique quality, were it not that gameplay will boil down to everyone occupying the same square foot of space where the bomb area is.

Players choose a car beforehand and then take them to war, though not all cars are equally able. Each vehicle is separated through strength, acceleration and handling. In addition, cars can vary from being smaller or bigger as well as having different weaponry. The problem here is that Smash ‘n’ Survive confuses the handling with a total inability to control driving. In addition, the large selection of cars will quickly turn to yet another annoyance. Previous cars become obsolete through the strange scoring system and players need to scroll through them to get to the right vehicle, which still end up feeling like the same thing.

At least killing opponents has 1 simple mechanic: smash and survive. Bashing into cars takes away from the health bar and players can also use their weapons. By now it’s become redundant, but there’s also a large grievance here. As cutscenes appear to lock in on the carnage, lots of camera positions confuse the oncoming path and often cut away from the player’s car itself. It’s an exacerbation piled on more annoyance. The game is even this desperate on distracting players that one of the tips mentions: “Your combat skills will improve as your dogfighting skills improve.” If a game is literally trying to entice players instead of simply showing it in the actual game, there is a problem in the system. A cynic might rephrase the former as: “This game sucks, but it gets better once you get used to it.”

Smash ‘n’ Survive is a game that looks promising on its surface but shoots itself down the second anyone touches it. It’s the perfect example that developers should concentrate on making a game work, before worrying about how good it looks. One shouldn’t cancel out the other, but if players need to play it, it needs to be playable. Smash ‘n’ Survive is barely playable and hardly worth doing so. There are a ton of vehicular combat titles competing with its release timeframe, such as Twisted Metal itself.

Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed. (@Daavpuke)