We’ve been following the progress of Extreme Gear ever since spotting it for the first time back in late January, but today is the day that Zero Games’ Extreme Gear: Demolition Arena (Free) has finally arrived in the App Store. If you haven’t been following along, Extreme Gear is pretty much an homage to old-school Destruction Derby from the PS1 days, something I’ve been hoping for on iOS for a long time. I’ve spent a good chunk of my day with Extreme Gear, and while it’s certainly rough around the edges and has plenty of room for improvement, the bottom line is that smashing into other cars is fun, and Extreme Gear does a great job at letting you do just that.
Visually, it doesn’t make a great first impression, but crank up the graphics settings in the options and it becomes a lot better, assuming your device can handle it. My iPhone 6S runs the game flawlessly with all the bells and whistles turned on, but your mileage may vary. Also, while there are a ton of control options, there’s no option to move the virtual controls around the screen, and I’ve found myself missing the steering wheel during crucial moments more times than I care to mention, which is pretty frustrating. Also, there’s really only one mode, where you smash into your opponents for points and whoever has the most points when time runs out is the winner. You can play this both online with other players or against AI, but this game is in desperate need of some additional modes, like Last Man Standing or Tag.
However, like I said, Extreme Gear delivers where it really counts: Making smashy. The driving physics are great, and the damage system is especially good with all sorts of dynamic stuff that can affect your car both visually and physically. I’ve already had tons of genuine laugh out loud moments with either a spectacular crash or crazy pileup of vehicles, making the game worth the price of admission already. Did I mention the price of admission is free? Extreme Gear is free to play, and there’s some not-so-great stuff going on with that, but in short if you’re used to typical free to play games you’ll know what to expect here. It’ll be easier to suss out how the pay model affects things after I’ve spent more time with the game.
Anyway, Extreme Gear: Demolition Arena is free so if it sounds interesting to you then by all means download it and check it out for yourself. My name is Boardumb online, perhaps we’ll “run into each other" HEH. There’s definitely the core of an outstanding demolition derby game in Extreme Gear, but it’s not quite there in this initial release. It’s a lot of fun though, so I’d suggest giving it a try and dropping by the forum thread to leave your thoughts or gloat about destroying someone online.
