I am somewhat positively surprised by the game. Yes, there are some problems with the physics, especially how touching an obstacle *lightly* can bring your car to a dead stop and how you cannot turn your car anymore once an enemy bumps into you and pushes you even slightly around.
But at the same time, these physics problems, which are bad for racing are *great* for fighting. It’s much easier to target enemies and stay on target than it would be in actual racing physics.
I also like how they apparently saw some problems with the game design and counteracted them by imposing additional requirements for the payout of money and such:
In theory you could just go very slowly and collect all the money in a race. That would allow you to reliably (though slowly) save the money you need for better cars and upgrades. But the game actually requires you to place at least 3rd so you actually get the money. I like how they found an ingame explanation for the fact (“Money is for winners!”).
The same goes for being lapped. You could just sit in one spot, waiting for your enemies to come by again and shoot them until all three of them are dead. That would make you the winner and doesn’t require any driving (except to collect up machine gun ammo). But being lapped also means no money for you at all, with more or less the same explanation. Even though you technically won the race, you’re still considered a disgrace for the racing community and get nothing.
The only thing they were fair enough to still give you is the wrenches you picked up. So when you have a badly damaged car, just drive slowly behind everyone else and pick them up to fix your car for free.
