Game Review: Mayhem

Billy O'Keefe - Mclatchy -Tribune News Service

For: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360

From: Left Field Productions/Rombax Games/Evolved Games

ESRB Rating: Everyone 10-plus (violence)

From the numerous mentions of 3D in the marketing to the two pairs of 3D glasses bundled inside, "Mayhem" makes a pretty big deal about its stereoscopic 3D capabilities. Unfortunately, it's much ado about nothing: The glasses are the old-fashioned red and blue variety, and the results of using them - so-so results for some, headaches for most - is the same it's always been with that kind of 3D technology.

Fortunately, the 3D is optional and disabled by default. Twice as fortunately, "Mayhem" doesn't even need the gimmick, because it's an entirely great time on its own merits.

In large part, that's because "Mayhem" is the first game since 2007's "FlatOut: Head On" to successfully attack a genre - destruction derby racing - that's a no-brainer for gaming possibilities but also a magnet for lousy budget titles that don't even try to do it right.

Like "FlatOut," "Mayhem" splits its time between racing events (traditional race and longer elimination-style events) and car combat (a last-vehicle-standing destruction derby and an event where you must knock the opposing vehicles off the track and into pits before they do the same to you).

But speed and destruction are never mutually exclusive. "Mayhem's" races - often set on figure eights and other tracks where you'll run into cross- and opposing traffic - are wonderfully perilous, and taking first place is as much about knocking your opponents off the track as it is about boosting past them down a straightaway. Conversely, because the combat arenas are nice and large, you're afforded plenty of room to attack with purpose, finesse and speed instead of merely bump and react.

"Mayhem's" driving physics, which vary nicely across 120 delightfully clunky sedans, wagons, trucks and even monster trucks, play their part perfectly. They're a little squirrelly, which can lead to your getting turned completely around in a race where you trade paint and lose the fight, but they're more than sufficiently responsive in terms of steering and cornering. The action is fast without feeling needlessly unwieldy, and there's an unmistakable weight to the vehicles that does not come at the expense of their handling. Everything feels just right.

Though the 3D experiment isn't a rousing success, "Mayhem's" graphic novel-style presentation gives the game a striking visual personality anyway. Nearly the entirety of the game - vehicles, tracks, arenas - appears in stark black and white, with the only sources of color being a blood red skyline and the occasional bright yellow "BAM!" that pops in after a particularly vicious collision. The unique look is a jaw-dropper at first, and it surprisingly doesn't get stale or even get in the way once you grow accustomed to it. Credit the level of detail in the cars and tracks, which squeeze as much out of that minimal color palette as could possibly be expected.

If "Mayhem" hobbles anywhere, it's in the longevity department, but the budget asking price goes a long way toward mitigating even this concern. The game's career mode can be finished off in four hours or so, and outside of unlocking all the vehicles, there's little else in the way of dangling carrots. But the racing is fun, fast and distinct enough to make "Mayhem" replayable simply on the merits of replaying it for fun, and if you have friends whose taste in racing games runs parallel to yours, the simple but sufficient multiplayer support (two players split-screen, eight online) has your back.

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