“Princess Zelda and Max Payne shot into my broadside like a pair of fangs”

Playing mod roulette in demolition racer WRECKFEST

THE SQUIRREL SKIDDED AROUND THE CORNER, AND I GUNNED IT

Wreckfest has Steam Workshop support, so before trying any normal race, I of course subscribed to a bunch of random mods. My first race took place on Team Fortress map 2Fort, and while I was still in the pre-race menu, all the other cars formed a car tornado around my car, which was actually a golf cart. They flung it into the water immediately after the race started.

I decided to use fewer mods, so my next race took place on a remake of a Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit track and my car was Lightning McQueen from Cars, but the physics were normal. I set the number of laps to ten, figuring it’d be most fun to race until everyone was demolished.

Seconds in, Sackboy clipped my rear wheel and spun me sideways, at which point I started to suspect that one of my mods had given all the drivers the names of popular videogame characters. I became sure of it moments later, when Princess Zelda and Max Payne shot into my broadside like a pair of fangs, flipping me onto my side.

ROAD RODENT

My collisions were more calculated after that. I introduced Solid Snake to a brick column and sent Gordon Freeman back to G-Man after he flipped his car on a guard rail. Sub Zero and Princess Zelda each briefly held the lead, but by the fourth lap, they too had tasted the pavement.

One racer, however, refused to leave me alone: Conker the Squirrel.

We spent the whole race swiping and jabbing at each other. He was my nemesis, and when Master Chief finally crashed into a storefront on lap four, he became the only racer between me and victory. My car only had a sliver of health left, though, so I was driving scared, and his lead was growing. It was no good.

And then, a lightbulb moment: I hit the brakes, turned around, and waited. And waited. Finally, the squirrel skidded around the corner, and I gunned it. All or nothing, baby!

After the impact, I nudged Conker’s car with McQueen’s demolished face, and it rolled backward slightly. He was out. I was shocked that my plan had worked. But if it had worked, why hadn’t the race ended? Turns out I’d made a bad assumption. The race doesn’t end just because there’s only one car left. I had five more laps to complete, and a sliver of a sliver of health left. I made it half a lap. Nobody won, but in the post-race summary, Conker was still listed in first place. Ah, that’s right: he’d completed more of the race than I did. Nemesis!