Gas Guzzlers Extreme (Xbox One) Review

Gas Guzzlers Extreme is a car racing video game with weapons. It was developed by Gamepires and published by Iceberg Interactive for Windows PCs in October 2013 and ported to the Xbox One in November 2016 with a port for the PlayStation 4 some time in 2017. Gas Guzzlers Extreme continues the tradition of games like Twisted Metal and Vigilante 8 but is it as good as these classic games?

In Gas Guzzlers you start out with a little money to buy your first car to race. Each of the cars is based upon real cars and it really doesn't take much effort to determine it's the real-world counterpart.

"Trans-Am, what's your pleasure?"

Each race you finish earns you money to modify your cars with performance enhancements and new weapons. Wins also advance you up the ranks until the top of the leader boards which will then unlock the championship races. If you win you advance to the next cup, the game contains three different championships.

Cars can be modified in many different ways including engine, brakes, tires, nitrous, and so on. You can also purchase new weapons for your car including miniguns, shotguns, conventional missiles, and nuclear missiles. After earning enough from wins you'll unlock new cars to buy, the game has 18 different cars to choose from. Every car handles uniquely, muscle cars are very fast but don't take turns too well while sports cars are a little slower but handle corners better. The game is an arcade-style racer and it is a lot of fun racing. You do race in different kinds of weather which also affects how the cars handle.

Doc Brown's Delorean would have been pretty badass with weapons attached.

This game doesn't take itself seriously in any aspect of the game which works to its benefit. The racers all have names that are either funny or stupid depending on your sensibilities. There are chickens all over the place that earn you points if you hit them. The more points you earn not only earns you money after each race but during the races the points charge your nitrous. The over the top announcer, who sounds like Duke Nukem, is voiced by Clint at Lazy Game Review and he does such a good job that you don't feel the need to mute him like announcers in other games.

The game has seven different types of races including straight racing, racing with weapons, deathmatches, and so on. There are 8 different arenas to race in with a total of 40 track layouts. The world and cars all look pretty good, not at the level of Forza but just fine for this type of game.

To finish the game it took me right around 10 hours to complete which for what I paid for this game I feel is just about right. Once I finished the championships I moved to the quick race menu where you can play a tower defense game against zombies. Each level has so many zombies to kill that you need to keep from attacking your base. You can have up to four players to defend the base, the other three can either be flesh and blood players or NPCs. As you finish each level different tougher enemies are added to the mix including giants and guys with machine guns. It's completely nuts but was pretty enjoyable. There are 10 levels to play and I was able to get to level 6 without too much effort but it definitely gets harder.

I had fun with this game and fans of over the top arcade racing Sim with weapons will have fun with this game. I give Gas Guzzlers Extreme a 7 out of 10.