Destruction All Stars - Review

When we got our first look at the PlayStation 5 one of the games that jumped out at me as being different was Destruction All Stars, at first I wasn't really sure what to make of it and the more I saw of it the more I was convinced there was something amiss. Now though the game has been released and after putting some time into it my fears have been realised there is something wrong with this game.

Destruction All Stars, at its heart is a car combat game, one that adds in a dash of light platforming and while the mechanics behind how that all comes together are interesting, the rest of the game isn't quite as interested in showing up. The best way that I can describe how the game plays is take the controls and camera of Rocket League, mix in a dash of Carmageddon and then layer it with some announcers from a random sports game. That combination may seem weird and you would be right to think so, there is something satisfying about landing a massive hit or when on foot dodging out of the way of somebody who's trying to run you over, but these moments of Zen are way too few.

The game can be broken down into two distinct modes the online portion and the arcade mode and we'll start with the arcade mode because it lets us explain things a bit easier. In this mode you are given a series of challenges, which can be in any of the game types, which means that the requirements for getting three stars will shift depending on the game type at hand. The best mode which they show off in almost every trailer is Mayhem, this is where you battle it out by smashing into other cars in an arena as time ticks down. If you play online Mayhem is going to be your common mode and for good reason, it is simple and straightforward and pretty much all you have to do is hit everything else, just not walls, on each stage. The arcade mode will provide you with additional challenges like winning will get you one star, but in order to get additional stars you might have to win by a set margin or complete another task. Given that you are unlikely to get three stars on your first run, each time, it does offer a nice amount of replay.

The other modes that you can sample are Carnado, which is pretty much like Mayhem but requires you to bank the score that you earned from hitting things, the big change for Carnado though is that it is a team event. A very similar mode is called Stockpile, where you have to smash into the opposing team earn gears but rather than bank them in a central location, it's more or less a capture the flag scenario, where you have to take control of the three banks around the arena. The last main mode that you can play goes back to the free-for-all of Mayhem but in Gridfall, the arena literally starts to fall out from under you so as the arena shrinks in drivable space the last All Star standing is the winner. Now arcade mode also allows for other challenges like time trials or collecting events and these really do help break up the monotony of the four main modes.

The problem is the arcade mode provides you with only one unlocked from the start, there is then one additional one you can unlock and one that will only be around for a limited time before it is replaced by another. None of this would be an issue except for the fact that you have to pay to unlock them, and the coins that you need are actually things you need to purchase with real world money. I first thought that maybe you needed to level up in the main game or when certain number of matches to earn coins and while you do earn coins there not the ones you need. It really is weird to lock content from the game behind a paywall, and while I understand the game was free for PlayStation Plus members, if it ever becomes available for people to buy at retail, I can’t imagine folks being happy, paying for a game, then paying to unlock the content within.

All that aside, once I had a solid understanding of the mechanics of the game I jumped into the online, and things were mostly ok with that. There are, at least at the time of this review, three server locations that you can choose to connect to, but by default it set me to the European server. That is nothing new as we are generally lumped in with Europe for most of our gaming, but in all the matches that I had played it was consistently lagging. The first time this happened I chalked it up to it being new, you know spikes in people logging on, that sort of thing; but the next day it still happened and the day after that. It got to the point where I opted out of the European server and selected the Japanese server, assuming that because it was closer any potential lag in the game would be minimal. The new problem was that after almost 30 minutes of attempting to find a match for Mayhem, you know the standard mode, I could not locate anyone to play with on that server. I then tried other game modes and the same issue it just kept timing out unable to find people to play with, so I went back to the European server and I lagged again, so I gave up.

The reason why this is all frustrating it's because this is a game that is designed to be played online and given the fact that one server lags and the other is empty, kind of defeats the purpose of the game. While I could practise as often as I'd like or jump into the arcade and try and get three stars on the one that was unlocked, without me having to pay for more, I never felt drawn into it. As I said earlier the game is very much Rocket League but with more destruction and it fails to be that, now I don't mean because it doesn't have a giant soccer ball to bounce around, I mean that it just doesn't have the nuanced controls and reactions that I was expecting. You could drive up the side of an arena, boost down and slam into a car and it feels good, or you could miss and drive right into an arena or hazard that you didn't see resulting in your k.o.

Whenever the cars got too damaged you could leap out run for a new car, maybe collect a few shards along the way, but of course you can run the risk of becoming roadkill. The on-foot sections are decent, especially given that you can wall run and if you choose to climb up above the action and get out of the way. I found those times especially fun if my hero vehicle was unavailable, with you needing to collect shards for it to unlock, being on foot allowed for them to be gained much easier. The problem is if you're in a match where you need to hit other cars hiding up out of the way is not gonna get you towards the top of the leader board, so you need to be into the thick of the action.

The action can be good and bad depending on which All Star you choose, for the most part they are generic in that they drive the same, they run the same and they jumped the same. What makes each All Star unique are their abilities, when on foot you have what's called a breaker, which when activated lets you double jump and can cause some chaos to those in cars, unfortunately you have to be really close to someone for it to be effective and that means you could end up wasting it or you might end up being roadkill. Once you can summon your hero vehicle, things can become quite entertaining, because each All Star has their own unique type of vehicle with its own unique power up. The cars are split into three classes light, medium and heavy, light is fast but easily damaged where is heavy is slow but deals out more damage, so picking the All Star that has the car type that you can work with is important.

What is also important is the ability that car offers, Ultimo Barricado allows for you to drop a massive shield in front of his car, which can stop attacks from front on dealing any significant damage but also allows him to be basically a giant battering ram. Where is somebody like Hana, her special ability allows her to equip massive blade at the front of the car and if you slam into an enemy vehicle you can slice it clean in two. Picking the right character for the right game mode is very important, but there's also style to consider because each All Star has their own look and character, even Boxtop.

The problem that I found with the selection of characters is that they all just felt like I'd seen them before, you know there's the guy who's big and strong but has a heart of gold, or the wacky Twitch streamer, in the cosplay and everything cute. None of these characters made an impression on me outside of their special abilities, the general look is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things because there either in a car or you're running from cars and you're paying more attention to things that might smush. You can obviously change how your character looks, the sayings that they can use and the emote dances that you can break out, by using the coins you earn during gameplay, but unless you're really invested in the character there's little point.

This brings up the presentation aspect of the game, for how incomplete the gameplay feels at times the presentation is even worse and it comes down to two factors, first is the lack of distinction in the arenas and the second is the voice work. The arenas range from locations such as Tokyo, London and New York, and with each one unless you're paying attention at the start of each match, there's no clear visual indicator is to say this arena is based in a set location. Sure those giant signs that hang above the arena that might say the name but again your focus is on smashing into other cars not on a giant sign. This could easily be fixed by making the ground colouring different in each location or having a different announcer in each location putting some local flair into everything, but as they stand now it's very hard to tell one arena from the other.

Of course I mentioned the announcer before and in all honesty it is frustrating voice and I wish they hadn't included it, the voice itself is not the worst, it is clear and crisp, but almost every single time they say something the line is grating to hear. Again this is not because they've delivered it in a bad way, it is the dialogue written that is horrible, if there was a vast array of dialogued here it might not be so bad but hearing how that was a high-five not a hit or the scoreboard is massive but in the other teams favour, two or three times a match is not fun. All this is compounded by the fact that your character has a limited range of sayings until you unlock more and while rewarding players with new content is fine, limiting sayings it feels cheap.

Destruction All Stars is a game that I wanted more from, because when I saw it my first thought was oh a car destruction game, those haven't been around for a while. The problem is what presented highlights that exact reason as to why the genre isn't as popular as it once was, there is very little content here out of the gate, at least that is included in the game and what is here feels incomplete. It blends a few different genres together but doesn't manage to combine it into something new and special, worst of all its core element is online multiplayer and honestly it's not worth the effort of trying to get into a match if we have to suffer random bouts of lag, if we managed to find a game.