The Xbox Live Arcade Block Party is well under way and for the second week of the celebration, Microsoft brings us Scrap Metal from Slick Entertainment, the people who brought N+ over to XBLA. Being the masterminds of marketing they are, Microsoft appears to be employing a rather common tactic of starting with a bang to get you hooked (Toy Soldiers), tossing the moderate stuff in the middle, and ending with an even bigger bang to make you feel like it was all worth your time. In this case, Scrap Metal is the “moderate stuff in the middle” and it is quite obvious that for many, this will be the low point of the month-long promotion. That, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that this is a bad game. In fact, it can be quite fun…at first.

When taking a brief look at this game, most people are quick to compare it to the Twisted Metal series, and they are perfectly justified in doing so. After all, this is a combat car game in which you drive a car with weapons strapped to it and try to blow the tailpipe off of your opponents. However, upon actually playing it, it is far more appropriate to compare it to classic racing games such as Super Off Road, the overhead arcade racing game in which you spin the wheel wildly about as you race against your opponents on a series of dirt tracks. Scrap Metal plays very much like this, but with the added bonus of weapons and power-ups.

While there is technically a story, it doesn’t follow any sort of set path and it really has very little relevance to the game; for the most part, it is simply there to give you a reason to compete in each challenge. All you really need to know is that you have a car with guns on it and you want take out all of the other cars until you eventually overthrow all of the track owners and rise to fame. And everyone else pretty much hates you for no particular reason. Works for me. After all, with a game like this, there isn’t a high demand for storytelling. It just has to be fun, and to a certain degree, Scrap Metal does what it can to deliver.

The game starts you off with a very nice tutorial that does a pretty good job of getting you acquainted to the controls along with the ins-and-outs of the racing and combat mechanics. Lately, it seems that tutorials tend to throw you to the wolves without a proper explanation, so this was very nice to see. As the game actually starts, you are given a junker of a car that you get to customize however you want. The options are somewhat limited, but what’s there is fun. External accessories range from spoilers and spare tires to mattresses and giant food items, all of which are completely pointless but add a nice bit of flair to your vehicle. Certain accessories can only be used on certain kinds of cars, however, which limits the variety even more and doesn’t allow for much freedom of expression.

Of course, you’re not reading this Scrap Metal review because you want to learn about how to gussy up your car. You just want to know how fun it is to blow stuff up, right? Well, for a good while, it is quite fun. As you progress through the game, you unlock a variety of different challenges such as races, demolition derbies, and more. Ultimately, they all boil down to one of five different directives: beat everyone in a race, blow everyone up, beat everyone in a race and blow everyone up, protect yourself from destruction, or protect someone else from destruction. It may not sound like much, but they are spread out and varied enough to keep things interesting, even if these same gimmicks are recycled for every new track that you unlock.

In total, there are 8 different tracks and 61 different challenges spanning across them. At the end of each track is a boss battle in which you have to compete against the track owner, either in a fight to the death or in a pink slip race. Once you have defeated them, you unlock a special car and you become the new owner of that track (which doesn’t do anything extra for you). Then you get to move on to the next track and do it all over again. They try to spice things up by sometimes making you drive certain vehicles or attacking you with clown cars, but it has a really hard time trying to stay fresh. No matter what the objective is, it always the same. Perhaps the biggest change is when you are stripped of your weapons for certain challenges, taking away one of the main things that makes the game enjoyable.

Although customization of the cars is somewhat limited, there is at least a good variety of different vehicles, all with their own types of weapons. Each car is tied to a specific weapon—so you can’t mount a machine gun on your monster truck—which provides a certain level of added challenge because many of the challenges will require a certain kind of vehicle and you will sometimes have to sacrifice power for speed and vice-versa. I was very much against this at first, but I do think it makes things a bit more interesting, so perhaps it was a wise choice. And as you collect scrapped cars that fall victim to the wake of your destruction, you can build up quite a varied arsenal of death machines to use at your disposal. Unfortunately, your garage can only hold four cars at a time, so you will have to ditch some favorites. You can bring back any unlocked car at any time, but all customizations will be reset and any points you spent on upgrades (speed, grip, armor, weapon power) will be lost. Points can be rather hard to come by in some of the challenges, so having to waste them like that is rather disheartening.

The biggest issue present in Scrap Metal is with the controls. Right from the beginning, they ask you to choose between two sets of controls: steering in relation to the screen or steering in relation to the vehicle. In the former, you simply point the stick in the direction you want to go and the car will follow. In the latter control scheme, you must steer as if you are in the driver’s seat. Therefore, left is always left and right is always right, no matter what direction your car is facing. This style should be familiar to Super Off Road fans and is best-suited for a steering-wheel controller. Having a choice between the two control schemes is great, but regardless of which option you take, trying to maneuver your car will be quite a hassle at times.

The physics system is very odd and unrealistic. Even going at slow speeds will cause you to skid and fishtail far more than necessary. This isn’t too terribly noticeable at first, but as the tracks become more complex, this issue becomes increasingly obvious and it gets the point where you will often have to restart a race because one bad turn landed you in a position from which you can’t recover. The slightest hint of a sharp curve will often result in you spinning out, missing a checkpoint, or flipping over. In a typical car combat game, this might not be too big of a problem. In fact, it can often work to your advantage during demolition derbies. However, this isn’t just a typical car combat game such as Twisted Metal; it is more of a racing game and every moment is crucial.

The tracks are designed wonderfully and I especially enjoy the last track, but they are built primarily to cater to the racing aspects of the game and they don’t take the poor controls into account. Most of the tracks have turns that are far too sharp for the cars to handle, so don’t be surprised if you end up destroying your own car by slamming into walls and exploding barrels. I am will to entertain the possibility that controlling with a steering wheel might game the game far more manageable, but I unfortunately have no way of testing that notion. Considering that Scrap Metal isn’t necessarily being marketed as a racing game, many players will likely be stuck with the analog controls that do not translate well at all and it may end up becoming too difficult for some. After spending several days with the game, I am still unable to complete it because three difficult racing portions are preventing me from advancing to the final boss challenges.

Because of the slightly unfair challenge brought on by the controls, staying interested in the game is rather difficult. It is quite unfortunate really, because the game is a lot of fun at times. But about halfway through, it becomes more of a grind and I found myself only continuing for the sake of being thorough, not because I was enjoying myself. Fully completing the game requires a level of commitment that I am not willing to make. More advanced racing fans might not have nearly as much trouble, but those expecting more of a demolition derby will probably find themselves in the same boat as yours truly. And although you can progress through the game and unlock significantly better cars, you can’t take them back to old challenges to increase your score and medals because of the class requirements. You will be allowed to play, but you won’t get anything for it.

Multiplayer is seriously disappointing. Slick Entertainment has claimed that they didn’t place as much emphasis on the multiplayer because the singleplayer adventure mode was more important, and this definitely shows. Whether you play at home with friends or online, there can only be up to four human players at once, despite there being eight different cars on the track at one time. And surprisingly, there are only three different modes to choose from: Race, Demolition Derby, and King of the Hill. King of the Hill is a fun multiplayer-only mode in which one car is elected as the “king” and everyone else chases them down until that person is eliminated and somebody else takes the crown. The other two modes are the typical race-and-destroy challenges scene throughout the multiplayer game. Depending on which mode you choose, you will have access to a few select cars. I was rather disappointed to see that I could not import my own customized cars from the singleplayer garage. Basically, the multiplayer plays just like the singleplayer mode, but it is less fun because of the lack of options.

If it is any consolation, the game looks quite nice. You will come across jagged edges here and there, as well as some occasional confusing collision-detection, but the game is quite easy on the eyes. And if you have a pair of 3D glasses, there are a few options for 3D gameplay. It is also packed full of heavy rock music that is very fitting for the environments. I personally didn’t enjoy the music much, but it is an appropriate choice and it’s not too distracting. For every negative aspect of Scrap Metal, there seems to be a positive, which keeps the game from being bad. However, certain things such as poor controls and a lackluster multiplayer mode keep it from being as good as it should be. I can’t recommend that everyone should play this, nor can I recommend spending 1200 Microsoft points on it, but I can recommend this if it fits into your niche. Giving the demo a quick trial run should give you a good idea of how much you will enjoy the game because good or bad, it is fairly consistent. At the very least, it deserves a chance.

Score: 6/10

Scrap Metal was developed by Slick Entertainment and published by Microsoft. It will be released for the Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade on March 10, 2010.