Wreckreation is a massive sandbox open world for all your high-octane adrenaline-fueled adventures. THQ Nordic and Three Fields Entertainment have successfully merged the likes of popular names ‘Need for Speed’ and ‘Forza Horizon’, giving you the keys to create your own adventures, either alone or with friends.

Wreckreation is an adrenaline-fueled sandbox with plenty of activities for you and your friends. Mix your world with over 400 individual pieces and 1200 variations of jumps, loops, stunt ramps, pipes, and moving obstacles that allow you to build tracks out to sea, on-road, off-road, or up in the sky, allowing players to express their actual creative abilities; the sky isn’t the only limit. Wreckreation is an actual fun-haver experience that I’m sure car lovers and ‘Dangerous Driving’ fans will thoroughly enjoy.

Controls are traditional, ensuring you can launch straight into the action. The cars feel quite different to those in other games, which took me some time to get used to, especially the drifting. It gave me more of a ‘Need for Speed’ vibe but still had its own unique touches.

After driving around and unlocking more of the map, there are various races, parking lots for your cars, gas stations, and billboards to smash, to name a few. Parking lots are where all your cars are stored, which was a nice touch since you don’t have to wait through long transitions to pick a car. Driving through gas stations also repairs your car and refills your NOS, much like other games.

You’ll also have challenges you can complete within Wreckreation. Some of these challenge activities are:-

• Hit The X – A large X is placed in the world, and players have to be the first to hit the X to win. The host can change the rules to add timers, wreck or attempt limits as well as change the win conditions, e.g. score the biggest trick through the X or perform a specific stunt through it.
• Race – The players have to try to be first to reach a destination chosen by the game. There are no checkpoints, so they can travel cross-country if they dare!
• Shutdown – An AI target car is created in the world, and the players have to try to shut it down with repeated Takedowns before it can escape.
• Break – Players have to do a certain amount of damage to the world by smashing through props or billboards, or damage their own cars by contriving to smash their car doors off!
• Driving – These challenges require the player to show off their driving skills by drifting, reversing or dodging traffic for as long as possible without crashing.
• Stunt – Ramps come in handy for these challenges, which are largely based around jumping, barrel-rolls or flat spins, so if there isn’t one nearby, it’s time to dip into Live Mix.

As stated before, Wreckreation truly puts the keys in your hand by allowing you to also change the time of day, weather conditions, and traffic conditions at the click of a button. You can also customise your car, no matter where you are, with heaps of different colours, NOS colours, and engine sounds; there is no limit to your creativity. You can even name the cars and the island whatever you like!

I did find a few times that it was easy to wreck my car; it wasn’t game-breaking, but there were a few times I would merely skim a car, and it would wreck my car, causing me to lose my position in the race.

In saying this, when playing solo, the other racers are hectic. Unlike other games where the NPC racers are either too easy or too hard, Wreckreation’s NPC racers are the perfect blend of both difficulties, which doesn’t make it frustrating to play.

Wreckreation, put simply, looks fantastic. For a 10-person team, the developers have gone all out to provide players with a fantastic, truly pleasing-to-the-eye scenery. Vibrant colours are everywhere, from the NOS to the hills to the lines on the road; there was no stone left unturned in the creation of this massive sandbox racer, 400 square kilometres or roughly 153 square miles to be exact.

Alongside the incredible scenery, crisp engine sounds, and music, the experience is further enhanced. While you can change your car’s sound with various engine sounds, each one provides a different feel and changes the car’s personality entirely. There are also 16 radio stations, ranging from smooth jazz or disco to movie music that’s undoubtedly going to have you grooving in your seat as you fly through the hills or launch yourself into the stratosphere off a jump.

Ultimately, Wreckreation is a blast, apart from the minor nuisance of crashing out over something small, I couldn’t fault the amount of high-octane action packed into every corner. Each element provided a proper homage to the burnout series for me, taking me back to my childhood. I highly recommend Wreckreation for anyone looking to jump on and have a fun-filled session, whether solo or with friends.

Written by: Larry