Trackmania is one of the recent racing games that embraced the concept of arcade racing to the fullest extent.  Levels were borderline non-Euclidean, and cars were expected to the do the near impossible.  REKT! takes that concept and places it in an arena with a simple, yet interesting, score system.  The question, of course, is if it does it well.

Many of the mechanics feel like they were inspired heavily by Uniracers (SNES), with levels looping around and designed only to benefit better and more complex tricks.  With the basic concept of cars being able to freely do tricks in the air as if they were a Tony Hawk character.  A score multiplier is added with every new trick, like so many titles before it.

You can check out our stream of REKT! below:

The game also comes with a shocking amount of unlockable cars.  Many of them can be gathered through normal play, and simply racking up high scores while playing.  Each car not only has a different appearance, but they all have different stats–although this didn’t ever really make any of them feel like they were handling differently, they might at higher levels of play.

The only real problem with Rekt! is that it all feels like it has been done before.  The scoring system is borrowed from Uniracers and Tony Hawk, the controls feel like something from Trackmania.  While it doesn’t fail to do any of these things poorly, it doesn’t change any one thing to make them ever really feel like its own.  Instead the game feels like it is borrowing from other’s legacy.

Rekt! is worth playing, in short bursts.  There are times when the urge to play a game becomes overpowering, but time might be short or other factors that just make it so you don’t want to invest a chunk of the day to a title.  Rekt! fills that void pretty easily, as it can be played for five to ten minutes, good progress made, and then put down until the urge appears again.  Maybe just wait for it to be on a Steam sale.