Warhammer 40K: Speed Freeks Preview
As we all know, the tide of video game releases ebbs and flows throughout the year. There are dry months and months awash in high-profile games. One thing’s for absolute certain: we’re never far from a new Warhammer game. Games Workshop is generous to a fault with licensing, so last month we played Warhammer 40k Boltgun. Warhammer Speed Freeks popped into early access this month after a few public alphas and betas.
Enter the Speedwaaagh (*Speedway for non-Greenskin speakers)
For those not immersed in Warhammer lore, Speed Freeks are Orks (Greenskins) with an affinity for vehicular mayhem and combat. They belong to the “Kult of Speed” and paint their Mad Max-style vehicles red because “Da red wunz go fasta!” I’ll spare you additional Greenskin-speak but you get the idea.
Warhammer Speed Freeks translates this bit of Ork Kulture into a racing and combat game slightly reminiscent of Twisted Metal. Imagine cars and Trukks (more Ork-speak) with all manner of guns, spikes, and battering rams inelegantly bolted onto the chassis, driven by lunatic Greenskins. Well, driven by you, actually. Despite what sounds like a raw and violent premise, the whole thing is pretty tongue-in-cheek and family-friendly.
Speed Freeks is a free-to-play competitive multiplayer game with, currently, two modes. Kill Konvoy pits 8-member teams against each other, each team trying to protect its Stompa (kind of a hulking tank-like death machine) while destroying that of the other teams. Deff Rally is another team mode, where each squad races from checkpoint to checkpoint on the way to the finish line.
The fun of course comes from the variety of jalopies, buggies, tanks, trukks, and other vehicles to drive, and the weapons bolted, screwed, welded, and nailed onto them. As Speed Freeks is free-to-play, there’s a cash shop that sells cosmetics for your vehicles. You earn in-game currency from completing matches, too, so the cash shop isn’t a required pit stop.
Mekboyz Represent
Spoiler Alert! Warhammer 40K: Speed Freeks is an arcade racer and not a detailed driving sim. Still, how the driving feels and how the vehicles control is the core of any racing game. In this regard, driving feels ok. Unless you’re driving a slow-moving, heavy tank, everything is pretty loose, fast, and slippery. There isn’t much tactile feedback. On the more visceral side, weapon effects are punchy and fun, though aiming at high speeds is of course a challenge.
Most of Speed Freeks takes place across smoldering, post-apocalyptic hellscapes, and the environments look pretty good. You’re never going to have an opportunity to really study them, however, as the game demands pretty much nonstop attention to driving and shooting. Speed Freeks does an excellent job of visually capturing the Greenskins’ obsession with hulking, brutish machines and guns. Speed Freeks pairs some effective environmental audio with the kind of metal music you’d expect to hear coming from an Ork’s dashboard radio.
MIA
Maybe there’s more to come, but the biggest issue with Speed Freeks right now is the lack of meat on some solid bones. You can’t customize characters and most often matchmaking just drops you into the chaos of an in-progress race. It’s an online-only game with no way to play unless connected.
The two team vs team modes are fine as a start, but Speed Freeks really needs a straight-up, vanilla race mode. An offline, single-player vs AI race option would be great, too. A career mode that follows a customizable Ork racer would be tons of fun. Alas, I don’t see any of those on the horizon.
For where it is right now, Warhammer 40K: Speed Freek is a slice of Greenskin mayhem, but it can get repetitive in short order. For Warhammer fans and those who faintly recall Twisted Metal, the free-to-play price is a non-existent barrier to entry. It’s definitely worth taking this Trukk out for a spin.
Thank you for keeping it locked on COGconnected.
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