Mashed: Fully Loaded

Review from Matt, Matt and Matt - Sunday, 24 April 2005 @ 12:00am

Mashed was a landmark game. Universally reviewed with the startled reverence of a hunter confronted with a solid gold bear, it was unanticipated, unhyped, and unbelievably fun.

Mashed: Fully Loaded, then, is a curiosity. Is it the same game, or a new game? Realistically, the question is easy to answer. This is the same game with some new bits. The question, then, is are there enough new bits to justify purchase of this shiny new game?

We?ll get to the answer to that down the track. First of all, let?s introduce Mashed.

Mashed is 2 ? 4 player simultaneous car based carnage. It is fun, frantic, fast and furious. Only without the blond guy.

I say two to four players, but of course, you can play by yourself. It just? well? it just isn?t any fun. This is really a pity, because you actually have to play by yourself to unlock any of the tracks or modes. This means that before you have a few mates over for some trash talk and roadkill you have to sit through alone and unlock everything for them. Blah.

If you?ve played MicroMachines on the PC, PSX or? well.. anything, you?re familiar with the mechanics. Get left behind and you?re out. Fall off the track you?re out. Last one left after everyone else is gone is the winner, winning one or two points. The loser loses one or two points. First to a set amount of points (I think from memory it?s 8) wins.

It?s pretty simple, and takes little or no explanation. This simple formula made MicroMachines a winner in gameplay, but years later Mashed upped the stakes. What Mashed added was third generation hardware, in the case of the Xbox especially that was more detailed (and in some cases moderately impressive) graphics, but most of all it meant the ability to have four players, simultaneously on their own controllers. And finally it also added guns.

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The weapons in Mashed are simple. There is a machine gun that fires ahead of you, messing up the steering, a shotgun that fires to the sides, blasting your rival pleasantly, a locking missile, as hard to get as it is to use, mines to drop behind, a ?flash? that simply whites out the screen, and the grand-daddy, the Drum Bomb, which can wipe out all of your opponents with a well placed shot, and more.

The funny thing is, none of these weapons will actually kill anyone, even the most powerful. What they do is mess up your opponent, knock them off their line, or boot them off the track. Falling behind is death. Being spun around will end your round as quickly as your car exploding in flames would have.

The other innovation in Mashed is possibly the most brilliant. A ?dead? player now has access to a targeting reticule. This square crosshair allows them to target which ever player they want. This could be the one that just killed them. Or the one winning the points table. Or just the one that they want to piss off the most. Once the targeting reticule is held on the target long enough it gets a lock, and becomes a circle. Tapping X at that point launches a very powerful guided missile. While they ARE avoidable they can also end the game very quickly, and they are a brilliant way to balance the gameplay and give the ?outed? players something to do.

But this isn?t a review of Mashed. This is a review of Mashed: Fully Loaded. So what does Mashed: Fully Loaded add or subtract from the brilliance of Mashed. First, I have to get out the fact that Reloaded does not take anything away. There?s no negatives to Mashed: Fully Loaded against Mashed in terms of gameplay.

Mashed: Fully Loaded includes two new tracks, which are actually very good. It seems that after the original the makers saw what worked and what didn?t and realized that simple tracks were actually better than complex ones, as they allow the players to make their own fun. Many of the tracks go completely unplayed, as they?re simply to complex to keep everyone together for the crashing and bashing that makes the game fun.

The new tracks are good. One is ?Fort Croydon?, a simple track of green grass and brickwork, and it?s a very pleasant addition. There?s not much to say about it, as it?s a rather uninspiring layout, with some fun tricks. Oddly, though, it reminds me of a track in Quantum Redshift quite substantially.

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The other track is called ?Demolition? and is set on the top of a building scheduled for destruction. The track is a simple ring, with some nice but tricky short cuts. The complete lack of barriers make for a lot of falling deaths, and games in this track tend to be short and dirty. Like my? never mind?

Other additions to the game are quite minor. There has been an overall improvement to the graphics, with some really nice textures on reflective surfaces, and some overall improvements to details. The new zoom in on the winning car is handled well. There are changes to the pickups, too, with it being much more obvious what you just got as well as what is in front of you. Pickup layout on the tracks is a little more generous, which makes for more fun. Cars + Guns = Fun. It?s an old bit of gaming arithmetic, but a powerful one.

Mashed: Fully Loaded only has one flaw. Mashed.

While Mashed: Fully Loaded can be found for $49.95, a respectably low price, Mashed is now available from some retailers (JB Hi-Fi) for as little as $29.95. And at that price point it?s very hard to justify the price difference for two tracks.

Summary

While I can?t recommend Mashed: Fully Loaded over Mashed, I actually also can?t recommend Mashed itself highly enough. If you have an Xbox especially, or a PS2, and you have ANY friends at all, do yourself a favour and buy this game. It?s well worth it.

Pros

One of the best multiplayer games ever in the history of gaming. Better than sex. Though only a bit.

Cons

Single player snorefest. Have to unlock everything first. Yug tends to win.