I’m not going to lie. Sometimes actually starting a review is the hardest part of the whole process.
You have played the game, you know what you think, but before you can get to that point, you have to come up with a witty way of introducing the game that you are going to write about. That can be a struggle.
The game in question this time around is Demolish & Build Classic from Demolish Games and Ultimate Games, but only one of those names is actually appropriate for what they have served up. I’ll let you guess which one!
Promising to put us in the shoes of a company owner who specialises in knocking stuff down, it must be something of a challenge to make an experience in which that premise is not an enjoyable one. Well, grab your hard hat and we’ll see if they have managed it, or not.
In Demolish & Build Classic we appear to be the boss of a construction firm. A bloke rings us up and tells us to go and do some jobs so we can buy some fancy new kit. Rather than saying “I’m the boss, you go and swing a hammer about” we decide that we will do this. That means we head out and drive around a bland looking series of locations, finding jobs that need doing and getting them done.
Those jobs could be simple, like knocking down a wall, or complicated, requiring multiple tools and vehicles to get the job done. Obviously, we have to earn sufficient dollar 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 just where it was you saw that dump truck you needed to buy, an hour ago. Marked on the map? Don’t be silly.
You’d think that the presentation of Demolish & Build Classic would see things get better eh? Well, don’t hold your breath, but it would be wise to temper your expectations.
The graphics on display here would make a PS2 blush, as they are pretty dreadful. But then you can also throw in some of the worst pop-in I have ever seen, taking place when driving around. And whilst the vehicles you have to drive look alright, that is until they try to move. You can throw the same thing at the game in terms of the moments when you are walking about on foot too – janky and awful are just the start of it.
And don’t even get me started on the glitch that happens when you approach a sign and attempt to read what is on it. The background starts scrolling horizontally, like in the old days when the horizontal hold went on your TV. I cannot stress how bad Demolish & Build Classic looks and the camera doesn’t help things either, lurching around like a drunken sailor in a tornado. It is really, really poor.
The sound is no better – the various vehicles you drive all sound the same, the “abrasive saw” you have to buy in missions has no sound at all until it hits something, which is not my experience of using circular saws in real life, whilst the hammer has as much heft as a bag of sugar. Continue with these type of things, so on and so forth. Even the music in the pickup as you cruise around is awful.
It goes without saying that I have been very disappointed in the way Demolish & Build Classic is able to present itself, and that is about the worst word I know in gaming reviews.
Still, I have played plenty of games before that weren’t too much of a looker, but they came alive when you started playing. I’m sure we all have, right? And it’s here where Demolish & Build Classic promises a lot of fun, from knocking down walls with a big hammer to driving bulldozers around to smash through ruined walls and so on. Surely the developers couldn’t mess this up as well, could they?
Well, it appears that someone said “Hold my beer” when this question was raised, because by jove they’ve done it.
Let’s start at the beginning and swing a hammer around, shall we? Surely this can’t be made frustrating and dull? Well, again, the developers have seemingly done the impossible. The thing with a hammer is, in real life, it is swung in an arc, and as long as some part of that arc intersects with the wall, there will be contact made. But not in this game. If the cursor isn’t over the exact spot that the game thinks the wall is at (and this is a very small spot) then nothing happens. You also have to be stood at exactly 90 degrees to the wall to make contact. It is unbelievably annoying to stand right next to a wall, swinging away, and see nothing happen.
The problem gets worse when you try to use vehicles. The backhoe, when you put the jackhammer attachment on (and that takes some delving through menus to do, let me tell you) has the same issue, in that the point of impact is very hard to judge. Oh, and the controls to raise and lower the arm with the jackhammer are also the same controls you use to steer the thing. What this means is that the jackhammer spends all its time buried in the floor or waving around in the air. The bulldozer is equally useless, getting grounded on tiny bits of wall or dirt that you are supposed to drive over. All in all, the whole game is an exercise in frustration.
Graphical glitches are my favourite part of Demolish & Build Classic though. Not just the rolling when reading a sign, which made me feel seasick, but in the way the pickup takes to the air at the slightest hump in the road. I have also spawned into the game, fallen through the floor and ended up, unable to move, stuck in the depths below the map. Only taking a taxi to another point put my feet on the ground.
And also, the vehicles run out of fuel quite regularly. ”So what?” I can hear you say, “Keep an eye on the fuel gauge!”. The slight issue is that there is no fuel gauge to watch, and in order to refuel you need to go menu diving again as we can actually refill 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 pick my words carefully here, but Demolish & Build Classic is absolutely rubbish. It is annoying, frustrating from beginning to end, looks like a game from the very early days of consoles, and is unable to provide any form of fun in exchange for your hard earned money. When you include the glitches, this is one to avoid at all costs.
