So many games today take older ideas and look to infuse a new wrinkle into them in order to great something fresh. One such game is Obliteracers which looks to take a page from the classic character-based racing games such as Mario Kart and infuse new life into a genre which too many had become fairly stale in recent years. The game puts less emphasis on racing as finishing first or last doesn’t really matter for the most part as the goal is to obliterate your opponents as you race around the track. There are a variety of tracks such as a futuristic city, tropical beach, oil tanker, and so on, many which will seem familiar to people who spent a lot of time in the genre.
By using weapons such as missiles, oil slicks, flamethrowers, mines, machine guns, and such, the strategy is to take out as many of them before they get you. When the field of opponents is reduced to one, the match starts over and continues until a champion has been reached based on a point system from the earlier matches. This at this point players can then move on to another locale and start the battle all over. There are variations in the gameplay mode where in addition to wiping out your opponents, factors such as staying in the lead, endurance, and such do help you increase your score which will ultimately lead to your overall championship. After a brief introduction to the game, I found myself able to win my earlier matches without too much difficulty and ultimately advance through the rankings fairly quickly.
There is a multiplayer mode for the game and matchmaking at me racing against another player in no time however it was a simple two player match and not nearly as exciting as having a field of players to race against. I hope in time that will be more customization options for vehicles, tracks, characters, and so on as the game is an amusing if albeit fleeting diversion. For value priced software it does hold a solid amount of entertainment if you’re willing to overlook some of the shortcomings and things such as random clipping issues were my car became part of the track at various times during the race.
Obliteracers gave me a couple of hours of pleasant distraction, and as such might be worth your time if this is something that would interest you.
3 stars out of 5
