Death Track: Resurrection Preview

Death Track is one of those classic PC games where destruction reigned supreme. There are few straightforward pleasures in gaming that can match combat racing – steering around a course, unleashing devastating destruction on the other drivers. Now modern gamers will get a chance to revisit that classic game with Death Track: Resurrection.

Death Track: Resurrection is set in the near-future – "The Survival Race" has become the world's most popular bloodsport and pastime with drivers competing in cities around the globe. Players get to join the race by picking one of 10 vehicles to race through futuristic versions of cities like London, Moscow, New York, Tokyo and Istanbul.

As with any real combat racing game, it's not enough to drive fast or stylishly. You also need steady aim and a twitchy trigger finger. To that end, racers get massive guns, mines, and secondary robots with which to blast away all other racers.

So far, the game is looking good. Detailed cars, sporting every conceivable graphical bell and whistle, speed around urban tracks leaving a crumbling concrete and demolished city behind them. The most awe-inspiring vehicle I saw was the truck cab with three huge Gatling guns mounted, as that much raw hauling power is needed to drag that kind of firepower around a track.

The game also supports all manner of stunts and tricks. It's cool enough to see fantastically long jumps and cars getting massive air, but watching a driver pull off stunts in the heat of combat is particularly impressive. I saw a sports car do a barrel roll while its roof-mounted .50 caliber cannon continued to track and fire on the other racers.

It's still a long while before Death Track: Resurrection reaches stores, but its already looking like serious fun for those of us who prefer ammunition to endlessly tweaking tire pressure.