Review:
GearGrinder Review

Developed by Targem Games, GearGrinder is a throwback to the likes of Destruction Derby, where racing is half the fun. The other is blowing stuff up with the machine-guns strapped to the top of your truck.

GearGrinder is an arcade truck racer – focused primarily on fun than any notion of accuracy. Your truck has a jet engine or two strapped to the back, which is covered by armour whenever you switch to combat mode, which makes your various weaponry pop out from its housings. You can deploy mines to discourage tailgating, and add chainsaws to the sides to make sure any over-taking opponents think twice.

So the game is introduced to you through a single player series of races and events framed by a story, following a truck driver called as he seeks out a gang to avenge his family, falling foul of the police in the process. That's about it for the plot, but then again it's hardly meant to be the draw of the game. What it does is nicely frame the various events and links them together, giving you some fun in preparation for multi-player.

The controls are nice and simple, using the arrow keys or w, s, a, d keys for your acceleration, braking and turning, and there is compatibility for a USB game-pad or wheel. You also use the space-bar to switch between combat and race modes, which in turn affect what the ctrl button does – in race mood it's your nitro, in combat it fires the weapons. Both of these are powered by “rage” which is displayed at the bottom of the screen. You fill the rage bar by destroying vehicles and being reckless – so driving on the wrong side of the road, near misses with other vehicles etc.

Most often, game-play consists of races, survival challenges and destruction courses, though now and again there will be an instance when you control a remote control bomb car or play with a charging meter to use your truck as a bowling ball to wreck a certain number of cars. These mostly exist to break up the racing segments, and offer a nice diversion, unlike the end of level encounters -
which can be rather frustrating due to consisting of three events back to back, and a loss places you back at the start. Whilst they can be beaten relatively quickly, they do on occasion provide some annoyance at the sudden increase in difficulty. Then again, these are end of level encounters and should be suitably difficult.