I’m not going to lie. Sometimes starting a review is the hardest part of the whole process.
You’ve played the game, you know what you think, but before you get to that point, you need to come up with a clever way to introduce the game you’re going to write about. This can be a struggle.
The game in question this time is Demolish and build a classic of Demolish Games and Ultimate Games, but only one of these names is suitable for what they have served. I’ll let you guess which one!
Promising to put ourselves in the shoes of an owner of a company specializing in knocking things down, it must be a challenge to make an experience in which this premise is not pleasant. Well, grab your helmet and let’s see if they’ve made it or not.
In Demolish & Build Classic we feel like we are the boss of a construction company. A guy calls us and tells us to go do some jobs so we can buy some fancy new gear. Instead of saying “I’m the boss, go and swing a hammer”, we decide that we will. This means we go out and drive around a series of bland looking locations, finding jobs that need doing and getting them done.
These jobs could be simple, like knocking down a wall, or complicated, requiring multiple tools and vehicles to get the job done. Obviously, we need to make enough dollars to get the kit we need, so finding the right job at the right time is the name of the game. Oh, and then, remembering where it was, you saw that dump truck you were supposed to buy, an hour ago. Marked on the map? Do not be silly.
You’d think the introduction of Demolish & Build Classic would make things better huh? Well, don’t hold your breath, but it would be wise to moderate your expectations.
The graphics shown here would make the PS2 blush as they are pretty terrible. But you can also enter some of the worst pop-ins I’ve ever seen that happen when you’re driving. And while the vehicles you have to drive look good, that is, until they try to move. You can throw the same in-game for the moments when you’re walking on foot as well – the noise and horror are just the beginning.
And don’t even get me started on the error that happens when you walk up to a poster and try to read what’s on it. The background starts to scroll horizontally, just like in the old days when it was kept horizontal on the TV. I can’t stress enough how bad Demolish & Build Classic looks and the camera doesn’t help matters either, flipping around like a drunken sailor in a tornado. It’s really, really poor.
The sound isn’t the best – the different vehicles you drive sound the same, the “abrasive saw” you have to buy in the missions doesn’t make any sound until it hits something, which isn’t my experience using circular saws in life real, while the hammer weighs as much as a bag of sugar. Continue this kind of thing, and so on. Even the music in the van while you cruise is awful.
Needless to say, I was very disappointed in the way Demolish & Build Classic is able to present itself, and that’s the worst word I know in game reviews.
Still, I’ve played a lot of games before that weren’t too interesting, but came to life when you started playing. I’m sure we all have, right? And this is where Demolish & Build Classic promises a lot of fun, from knocking down walls with a big hammer to driving bulldozers to break down dilapidated walls and more. Surely the developers couldn’t get it wrong either, right?
Well, it looks like someone said “Hold the beer” when this question was posed, because they have done it since they were young.
Let’s start at the beginning and swing a hammer, shall we? Surely this can’t be made frustrating and boring? Well, again, it looks like the developers have done the impossible. The thing about a hammer is that, in real life, it is swung in an arc, and whenever part of that arc intersects the wall, there will be contact. But not in this game. If the cursor isn’t over the exact spot where the game thinks the wall is (and that’s a very small spot), nothing happens. It must also be placed exactly 90 degrees from the wall to make contact. It’s incredibly annoying to stand right next to a wall, turn away and see nothing happen.
The problem gets worse when trying to use vehicles. The backhoe, when you put on the jackhammer attachment (and that takes some digging through the menus, let me tell you) has the same problem as the point of impact is very hard to judge. Oh, and the controls for raising and lowering the arm with the jackhammer are also the same controls you use to steer the thing. This means that the jackhammer spends all its time buried in the ground or making movements in the air. The bulldozer is equally useless as it lands on small pieces of wall or dirt that you are supposed to drive through. Ultimately, the entire game is an exercise in frustration.
However, the graphical glitches are my favorite part of Demolish & Build Classic. Not just the roll when reading a sign, which made me feel seasick, but the way the pickup takes off at the slightest bump in the road. I’ve also appeared in the game, fallen through the floor and ended up unable to move, stuck in the depths below the map. Just taking a taxi to another point put my feet on the ground.
Also, vehicles run out of fuel quite regularly. “And what?” I can hear you saying, “Watch the fuel gauge!”. The small problem is that there is no fuel gauge to keep an eye on, and in order to refuel you have to go back to the dive menu, as we can actually fill up the vehicles in the middle of a field, which is great . I wish I could do that in real life.
All in all, and I want to choose my words carefully here, but Demolish & Build Classic is absolute garbage. It’s annoying, frustrating from start to finish, feels like a game from the early days of consoles, and fails to offer any form of fun for your hard-earned cash. When you include the bugs, this is one to avoid at all costs.
