Posted on: November 13, 2020
aukje.wildenborg
Verified ownerGames: 42 Reviews: 21
Excellent
Not many games from the late 90s stand the test of time well, but Deathkarz is a racer that still rocks. It has a slick, stylized look with exuberant lighting and cool car designs. The tracks are memorable and although there aren't many, they stand out with their distinct tile sets, superb pacing and well tuned difficulty. My favorite are the Grand Keys Medium and the Red Planet Long, but I really like all of them. Speaking of difficulty, the game is very clever because there are lots of factors that determine it. Track size, car class, car team and championship all impact how tough a race is going to be, which makes the game very replayable. Sometimes you'll play a game and you can just tell that it was properly playtested, well, Deathkarz is one such game. The AI will cheat, for instance you start in the final position every race. The leaders in a race will also never destroy each other, and at takeoff they will accelerate way faster than you are able to. But those are well-considered compromises because as a player you have a lot of advantages too. You can selectively kill enemies, take dirty shortcuts the AI cannot, and use power ups way more intelligently than the AI. All this translates into a thoughtful, balanced game that eventually feels fair and focuses entirely on fast and fun gameplay. The excellent sense of speed contributes to this as well as the nice music. The cars all handle differently and the driving has enough depth that you can get better and eventually become a Deathkarz pro! This is not a game you'll necessarily play for ten hours every day, but it's a game you'll keep installed forever and come back to every so often. Play it with a game pad, steering wheel or keyboard; you can do whatever you want. It's not particularly fussy about hardware either. Just don't forget to reboot your system after installation or the game will hang for some reason.
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