15-Aug-2001 Smash things up real good in this poor PlayStation port The first thing anyone whose seen the PlayStation version of Destruction Derby will comment on are the inferior graphics. As with WipEout, Destruction Derby looks duller, lacking the sheen and glossiness of its PlayStation counterpart. This is most painfully noticeable in the comically puffy smoke trails. This is actually a bit besides the point - the problem being that Destruction Derby is based on the PlayStation code, restricting the ambition of the graphics in the game. The truth is that there's many a Saturn game with much better smoke effects than Destruction Derby, the misdemeanour amounting to a lack of care in the conversion. The mechanics of the game are identical to the PlayStation version with a range of different kinds of game to play. Besides racing around circuits, there's the notorious everyone-for-themselves scenario in the Destruction Derby itself. There are five divisions to race in - players work their way up through the leagues depending on how impressive their point score is at the end of a season. At the Saturn's launch I would have given Destruction Derby a bit of a rave write up. This industry being the ever-morphing and fickle one it is though, even fans of the PlayStation version would now have to admit that the game lacks longevity, if nothing else.
Destruction Derby makes it to the Saturn much too late to cause the kind of sensation that WipEout did. Comparisons with the PlayStation version are inevitable, and the rather haphazard conversion means that the Saturn version lacks the polish of its rival.
