Destruction Derby was one of the games that came out just after the original Playstation's launch. Although never a huge seller by famed Geordie developers Reflections' standards, it was a personal favourite of mine, no game had ever mixed pure destruction with proper racing and DD did it so well. A couple of slightly disappointing sequels (Destruction Derby 2 and Destruction Derby Raw) followed and then it all went quiet on the Destruction Derby front. About time for some more metal bending then? - Well using the PS2's Network adapter for online destruction racing sounds like a good idea to me…

So needless as it may be for a racing game, the back story goes like this: years have passed since Destruction Derby Raw and a group of moneymen fed up with yawnsome traditional motor sports decided to support the underground scene. The all-action racing in which destruction was an art, not a failure, captured a whole new fan base. The TV channels were quick to spot the potential and brought truckloads of money to the sport, millions of spectators and plenty of glamour. The new breed of drivers are the latest superstars, and their rivalries, loves and fallouts are all shown on TV and regularly spill out onto the track, which makes for plenty of danger, but great TV!

   

Destruction Derby Arenas lets you pick one of the characters each with their own "fully" destructible cars, and throw it around a 4-tiered series of tracks and bowls. The handling is direct and arcadey, but nice power slides are possible. Each thumping collision earns a bit of turbo boost, so in Wrecking Races you need to drive skillfully and smash the opposition to win championships - winning the race alone won't guarantee success. There are pickups scattered along the way, from boosts to "repair" and "points bonus" icons. You won't have driven far before you feel that DDA is a bit lacking. The cars feel sluggish and the frame rate is poor too. The car damage is disappointing and the game structure that was so finely honed in the original Destruction Derby seems to have been lost. In the ten-year-old Playstation DD you had a choice in Wrecking Racing - race to win, or drive to destroy as many opponents along the way - you could win championships either way. Try to win races in DDA and you won't get anywhere, and the entire structure and scoring system seems a bit messed up.

The offline multiplayer consists of your typical split screen where you and a friend or three choose from any of the drivers you've unlocked (20 overall) and take part in races on the 13 tracks or destroy each other in any of the 5 arenas. All modes also have a full line up of AI controlled cars for you to race against or smash up.

   

The online races seem to be a bit thin on the ground at the moment (another PS2 online game that Sony forgot to tell anyone about?) but once you get in with a decent crowd they can be a bit of fun - Wrecking Racing and Pass da Bomb seem to be the most popular, but they're hampered by the same frame rate problems and unhelpful camera as the offline game - the more the players, the worse it gets - so understandably most races seem limited to 8 players although the game is supposed to support 16, even so (and perhaps amazingly in a game of this sort), collision detections seem a bit "hit and miss" (no pun intended).

DDA ain't exactly the best looking game around, and with all the gaudy colours being flashed around, the look is cartoony and almost cel shaded. The overly imaginative tracks and arenas have all kinds of ramps and shortcuts, but are all so fantastic that you almost feel like you should be driving around in Mario's Kart or something similar. Win a round and your car gets upgraded (not that you'll particularly notice it) with bigger engines, vicious looking bumpers and side impact bars…

The overall feeling I get with DDA is disappointment - with its unremarkable looks, vague handling and physics it seems a pale imitation of its more illustrious and better-advertised forebears, and as a PS2 online game it fails to excite or impress.