Racing is fun and all, but sometimes you just want to drive into a wall to see what happens. Or perhaps, even better, you want to smash your opponents into a wall. Will the frame of the car satisfyingly crumple? Will the wheels fly off in a burst of chaos?
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Destruction and damage to your vehicle also raise the stakes for your racing. If your car can get damaged, you can’t easily get away with arcade tactics like using the wall to help you turn. You have to calculate your risks more, and a mistake can cost you the race.
However, if you do make a serious mistake, at least you’ll often have a cool car crash to watch. These are the 10 best racing games where car destruction will factor into who takes home the checkered flag.
10FlatOut 2
Don’t Get Flattened
FlatOut 2is a PS2 and original XBOXoff-road racing classic. It’s a destruction derby racing game with the twist of being able to launch your driver through the windshield.
This mechanic is mostly for laughs in the racing part of the game; however, it’s crucial to the mini-games, where you participate in games like curling, only with your driver’s body.
The racing in FlatOut 2 is chaotic, with boost awarded for slamming into each other. If a car takes enough damage, it can become wrecked and be taken out of the race for good. Of course, that means that sometimes the best strategy is to destroy the competition, literally.
9MotorStorm: Pacific Rift
It’s Getting Hot In Here
MotorStorm: Pacific Rift
TheMotorstormseries provided an interesting riff on racing games. The games in the series focus on vehicle classes that have varying specialties, and then pit them against each other. This means your car might get devastatingly rear-ended by a big rig that can’t brake as quickly. I’m sure it was unintentional.
Adding more fuel to the fire, you have to worry about your boost overheating, as that will make your car explode. Using your boost, especially when too close to fire or lava inMotorStorm: Pacific Rift, raises the temperature.
Luckily, an exploding car is only a minor setback in this game, and you will respawn after watching your vehicle turn into a fireball.
8Burnout 3: Takedown
A Whole Mode For Crashing
Burnout 3: Takedown
TheBurnoutseries is iconicfor its vehicle destruction, with making your opponents crash being a core part of the gameplay. There are a handful of ways to gain boost, but none are more effective than totaling your opponents. Sure, they’ll respawn, but they’ll be far behind you with your now full boost tank.
Burnout 3: Takedownhighlights the chaotic destruction of the series with its various fast-paced modes, but its most destructive feature isn’t about racing at all. The Crash mode is all about causing a multi-car pileup and causing the most expensive crash possible.
So, are you in the mood for racing or pure crashing and destruction?
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7Shift 2: Unleashed
License And Registration, Please?
Shift 2: Unleashed
Games with licensed cars often don’t have car destruction. Car companies don’t like seeing their precious babies get harmed, I guess. However, one game that does have vehicle destruction and real, licensed cars isShift 2: Unleashed. Rolling a car will have pieces of the car flying everywhere and even knock the wheels off if the wreck is severe enough.
The cars’ bodies won’t realistically crumple when driving at full speed into a wall, but it’s the closest to realistic destruction you will see with a name-brand car in a game. Without mods, that is.
It’s also just a great semi-realistic racing game with very well-done progression, going from easy races in stock street cars to seriously challenging races in highly modified GT1 race cars.
6Full Auto 2: Battlelines
Racing And Shooting?
Full Auto 2: Battlelines
Full Auto 2: Battlelinesisn’t your typical racing game. It has a vehicular combat twist. The cars are mounted with weapons to take each other out, and of course, they deal satisfying destruction. Whether it’s driving into each other with rams, shooting with machine guns, or even launching mortars, the damage dealt is beautiful.
Outside of destroying cars, which will respawn, the destruction is purely cosmetic. That said, setting your opponents back in a race is always helpful. Additionally, even chunks of the environment will get destroyed from the chaos, which is always fun to see.
And, if you get bored of racing and want pure vehicle combat, that’s available as well.
5Test Drive: Eve Of Destruction
It’s In The Name
Test Drive: Eve of Destruction
Test Drive: Eve of Destructionisa classic demolition derby gamewithan assortment of wild race types, and destruction often being a key to those race types.
Whip Around races often have cars racing at each other head-on, Figure 8 races have cars constantly t-boning each other, and Trailer Races reward you for taking out other cars and their trailers. The game truly understands how fun crashing can be.
In the career mode, the destruction is even somewhat permanent, with only so much of a car’s health bar being recovered from repairs. It doesn’t affect performance, but being low on health does put you at risk of totaling your car and losing the event.
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4Dirt Rally 2.0
The Dreaded Tire Puncture
Dirt Rally 2.0
Dirt Rally 2.0has some of the most detailed, small-scale destruction in a racing game. Small things like a flat tire or cracked headlights can occur from the slightest mistake, affect your performance, and quickly add up.
Not only that, but the damage carries over between races during events. That means one mistake can not only cost you a race, but several races, and even a whole championship.
The small-scale destruction isn’t all Dirt Rally 2.0 offers, as you can easily roll and total your car on the treacherous off-road tracks. You have to balance the risk of going as fast as possible with making the best possible time.
3Burnout Paradise
Where The Grass Is Green
Burnout Paradise
Burnout Paradisetook the Burnout seriesto an open-world format, allowing for even more chaos and destruction. You get to unleash your destructive instincts onto an entire city.
The game is missing the Crash mode of previous Burnout games, but it adds stunts, which can easily go wrong and end up just as destructive. The cars warp and bend in an even more satisfying way than previous Burnout games. Who knew that trying to barrel roll a car could result in it being smashed flat like a pancake?
The game also introduced multiple boost types, one of which encourages the destruction the series is known for by growing in size the more cars you take out.
2BeamNG.Drive
BeamNG.Drive
BeamNG.Driveis more of a physics simulator than a racing game, but it does both, and has unmatchable vehicle destruction. Cars realistically crumple and fall apart in unique ways depending on how the crash plays out, rather than pre-determined parts falling off at certain damage thresholds.
The game also supports mods, adding nearly endless vehicles and ways to play around with and destroy them.
There’s simply no other game that delivers destruction like BeamNG.Drive. If you’re more into crashing cars than racing them, or just asking “What if?” in general, it’s the perfect game for you.
1Wreckfest
Wrecking Perfection
Wreckfesthas it all. Great races, lots of destruction, and the destruction even affects your performance in racing. While your car’s body will bend and warp dynamically to destruction, several parts will also change in performance. A damaged gearbox will take longer to shift, a missing wheel can make it hard to turn, etc.
It expertly balances destruction with racing, and that nuance reallycomes alive the more you play, as longer and tougher races will challenge your skill at managing your car breaking down on you.
And, of course, if you want a focus more on destruction than racing, there’s always destruction derbies with the sole purpose of smashing cars into each other. That’s always a good time!
