Vroom Kaboom review

Reviewed on: PC

Too much mixing. Way too much mixing.

The coolest thing about smaller games is the boldness of implementing and/or mixing certain concepts, which may or may not be niche, which are usually branded “non-commercial” or would face some commercial resistance. I don’t need to list examples here, because you surely know plenty. The problem is when that boldness becomes a sieve used to cover the sun of the game’s problems.

Vroom Kaboom falls into this category. We’re talking about a strategy game with elements of Card Game, Tower Defense and Car Battle ─ Twisted Metal style.

“Huh?!” ─ you ask in total confusion ─ “Is it really possible to combine these things?”

It is possible, yes. Whether it works is another story. And, (un)fortunately(?) for Vroom Kaboom, the story wasn’t the best.

A big problem in more recent games is the inability to filter the game’s flow of information. They always get the amount wrong: either they present everything at once, overwhelming players, or they do exactly the opposite. The latter is the case with Vroom Kaboom: the game offers little help and doesn’t give players enough information. There is a tutorial, but it’s weak and incomplete, and doesn’t help at all.

The gameplay really is mixed. But it’s not one of those mixes where you’d say “well, gosh. I never thought this combination would work! Look how good it is!!”, like a cocktail of vodka, passion fruit and biquinho pepper. It’s the kind of combination you know won’t work, you submit yourself to trying it, you try it, wrinkle your nose and say: “I knew this wouldn’t work”, like mayonnaise and beans. It didn’t work, Vroom Kaboom. The game involves a crazy mix of Twisted Metal and a card game with tower defense elements. Each vehicle (ranging from little motorbikes to GUIDED MISSILES ─ a plus for the game) must be played by paying a resource cost. When you play the card, the vehicle appears on the field and may or may not be controlled by you. The ultimate goal of the game: destroy the towers at the end of the battlefield while trying to protect yours. All of this while you control (or not) several vehicles you’ve played.

It’s way too insane and, on paper, it works really well, right?

Well, no.

Because thanks to the unresponsive controls, and the general confusion of a game that (clearly) was made to be played with mouse and keyboard, the experience is frustrating. It goes from “look, a nice little Tower Rush” to “OH MY GOD WHAT AM I DOING?!?!”. You know that meme of the dog in the lab? I felt exactly like that while I played the game.

Boring to no end, with an age-long wait to find online matches (ranging from 1v1 to 3v3), I pictured hours and hours holding my head up with a clenched fist while huffing in boredom (both waiting for matches and playing against the AI). The most unacceptable part is that we’re talking about a game with strong card game elements. So you’d expect some care around deck building, right? You’d expect the game to take you by the hand and say – “hey, come here, sweetie. I’ll teach you how to build decks”. BUT NO. Not even that. The building screen is just a “This is the deck building screen, those are your cards, and good luck, champ” and leaves you there, lost in the desolation of stuffing in a bunch of cards without really knowing what to do.

But it’s not all bad. There’s plenty of interesting stuff in Vroom Kaboom, especially in the game’s art direction. There are three factions, each based on concepts very well explored in games like Vigilante 8 or Twisted Metal: a more Mad Max faction; another that seems to have come straight out of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift; and one totally focused on stylish cars, like Impalas and Cadillacs. And the variety of cards is pretty cool. There are more usual vehicles, like cars and buggies, but the game is bold enough to throw in vehicles like a Bus PACKED with machine guns, a Gyrocopter and ─ my personal favorite ─ A FUCKIN’ MISSILE. And each faction has a series of unique vehicles and cards, all fitting the overall theme. That’s quite interesting and gives the game a slight refresh.

As things stand, it’s not a fun game. Even with a free version (with loot boxes, obviously), it’s the kind of game that looks interesting on paper and, in practice, ends up full of flaws because the devs focus on the differentiators but forget the basics. Vroom Kaboom is the fruit of a mix that is theoretically cool, certainly weird and provably poorly made.

MECHANICS – 5

AUDIOVISUAL – 6

FUN FACTOR – 4

FINAL SCORE: 5

review done with a code kindly provided by Ratloop Games