Death Rally, from Remedy Entertainment, is a top down combat arcade racer that, although innovative in its design has some major shortcomings. The story is lackluster at best, although it is presented in beautiful comic book scenes with built in dialogue. The plot is conveyed through special story races, which have one difficulty and get progressively harder, culminating in a race that is extremely difficult to win, even with fully upgraded cars. The story only has a handful of races, although it requires certain levels of fame to progress.

You earn fame through non-story races, so the bulk of the game consists of choosing a random race to grind your way up to a higher fame level. You choose one of seven races in which to compete, and then the completed race is replaced with another option. These career races have different difficulty levels ranging from beginner to expert. Races have different difficulty levels, and the more you play of one type, the more options you will have for that difficulty. This creates a game in which there is never a race that is too hard to beat, because there is always guaranteed to be at least one beginner race to choose from. The meat of the game however is these races which lack no coherence between one another, creating a game of one time races.

The races themselves are only a minute long in most cases, and are full of shooting and nitrous boosts. You win each race by either coming in first place or destroying the other cars, and there is a healthy mix of the two. The combat adds an interesting layer of strategy to the race. Instead of vying for first place where everyone can target you, it is better to stay behind until the latest point possible. The problem is that the primary weapon has very limited ammo and the aiming is often slightly off. Most of the race, the secondary weapon fires automatically, leaving you with little to do for a racing game with guns. It is possible to get more ammo, however. Boxes house loot including ammo, cash, repairs, and nitrous, but the boxes can take some time to destroy.

Each car handles slightly differently, creating a distinct feel for each, although the handling overall leaves something to be desired. The different surfaces, such as ice and dirt, reduce handling as well. This, combined with the controls, gives you the precision needed to win the race. The controls are simple, the arrow keys steer, ‘z’ and ‘x’ are used for your primary weapon and mines, while the space bar engages a nitrous boost. The arrow keys do not always work well for controlling your car, though. Over-steering and under-steering are always a problem, and it is sometimes hard to tell how far you still need to turn.

The main issue at play is the camera angle. You race in every direction around the map, but the arrow keys do not point in the direction you want to drive, rather steer left and right. It can sometimes be confusing when your car is facing down, forcing you to reverse your intuition. There is an alternative chase camera which always keeps the car facing up, but the camera moves too quickly, making it slightly nauseating.

Despite these flaws, the short races save themselves. After each race, you earn cash to level up your car and the weapon you used. There is no bank, so any leftover cash is put toward your fame instead of other cars or weapons. Lost races are not necessarily a failure when you can sometimes level up your car afterward, and Death Rally does not penalize you for losing. If your car is destroyed, you must use the cash to repair it, but aside from the story missions, there are no mandatory events to pass. Even the story missions are not required to unlock cars or weapons. The parts to unlocking new racetracks, cars, and weapons are scattered throughout the level at random and appear when you destroy an enemy car. This, once again, leads to a grind of unlocking things, but you never have to beat a race to unlock something and you never even have to come in first. It is possible to make money and upgrade your cars by merely tagging behind and destroying your opponents.

At a Glance:
Mobility: The controls in Death Rally are customizable and require seven buttons to steer, use nitrous, ammo and mines and gamepads are also supported. The game is fast paced on the higher difficulty races, and it is hard to steer. To add to the pressure, one slip up can be the difference between a win and loss. Death Rally sometimes puts you right into the race without enough time to search for your car or determine which way you are racing. In addition, the game does not require a mouse to play. Recommended Score: 8/10

Visual: Cars look the same sometimes and it is hard to tell which car is yours. Chase camera makes you dizzy. Red laser helps aiming, but can blend in with the track. In addition certain tracks block the view of the cars making racing difficult. The font is presented in high contrast although some gamers might find the font hard to read. Recommended Score: 7/10

Hearing: The comic cut scenes are fully captioned and the only things indicated solely by sound are in race taunts. Recommended Score: 9.5/10

Saving: The game saves automatically after each race.

Overall: Death Rally is a fun combat racing game with a difficulty level for everyone and is certainly worth a try