Developer: Demolish Games
Publisher: Ultimate Games
Platform: PS4, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: PS5
Demolish & Build Classic – Review
Demolishing big buildings or just breaking something small in games is always fun to do, especially when we have quite a few resources to do so. Building something up from scratch is equally satisfying, and we reckon this is also why a lot of simulation titles do so well. In Demolish & Build Classic we have the best of both worlds. At first glance, it looks like a fun little game that focuses more on the demolishing part, which made us wonder how the actual game balance was.
Story
The game starts with a phone call. The person on the other end of the line calls you the manager and thanks you for helping out the failing business and the company is thankful for your help. He can not help you physically but will help you with administration and be a guide. The first task assigned to you is to get to a site and do your first demolishing job. The story presented serves more as a tutorial or a guide. We didn’t mind the absence of a meaty story here, as these games are usually all about the gameplay.
Graphics
Demolish & Build classic is a graphical disaster. When we got to our first job site, we saw that the textures were messed up, and we even spotted a few glitches through which we could see the textures on the other side. We saw some assets floating or every type of terrain glitching through the back of our truck when driving around. It feels cheap and like an asset flip where the development team just randomly placed assets without even checking if they connected with the surface. Many of the assets themselves also look cheap and as if they came from a game that was released two decades ago.
Sound
The SFX here are decent enough. Some sound effects still sound a bit simplistic, but all in all, they provide decent audio feedback. The music is also decent. The soundtrack isn’t bad but it is limited. The radio that is in each vehicle only has three radio stations. Nonetheless, it’s still good that you have to option to change radio stations when you’re tired of a specific track. Oddly enough, the music that plays when you walk around sounds ominous and not something you expect from a build-and-destroy game.
Gameplay
The gameplay of Demolish & Build Classic is a simulation game that is easy to understand. The story is used as a tutorial and a way to know what you’ll unlock next. In most simulator games we do not have something to guide us, so we appreciated the handholding here. You’ll go around from site to site, to which you’ll have to drive yourself or fast-travel when that is unlocked. When driving somewhere, you’ll consume gas, which did feel realistic. Sadly, you simply go to a menu to refuel, immediately shattering that sense of realism. Having a few gas stations on the map would have been a nice touch.
Demolishing contracts can only be accepted if you own the right tools. It is good that they show what you need before you accept these contracts. There are of course objectives to complete. You’ll have to be mindful of items still left at the site, such as used gas cylinders, which you’ll have to dispose of manually. Some objects also have a red icon on it. That means that those items are not allowed to be destroyed. This does add a bit of depth to the experience, as we can’t just destroy everything all willy-nilly. If we hit one of those objects, it will taken off from the profit we made. While some parts here are satisfying, it does get old rather quickly. On top of that, when destroying objects with, for example, our sledgehammer, it even felt as if our hits didn’t even connect with the objects we were demolishing.
The building part of this game is fairly underwhelming and often boils down to creating camping spaces to get a passive income. The building then consists mainly of putting sand into a dump truck. We assumed we would be building impressive structures, but sadly this was not the case. Over time, the ‘structures’ you have built can go into maintenance. We once again assumed we would have to do something that was worthy of the game’s moniker ‘build’ but all we had to do was pick up trash most of the time. This was disappointing and we felt the game’s title was somewhat false advertising due to this. Eventually, you can hire someone to work there to avoid the maintenance tasks. It feels like even less effort was put into the building part than there was in the demolishing part. All things considered, we never felt like we were truly creating anything worthwhile.
One saving grace might be that the game’s controls are intuitive and responsive. All prompts are clearly marked on the screen when we needed them, except for a few occasions where a small visual bug reared its ugly head. The latter, however, never truly interfered with the actual gameplay and was only very rarely that it happened during our testing period.
Conclusion
Demolish & Build Classic is simply a bad game. While demolishing things is still entertaining to a certain extent, it’s the building part that falls flat. The fairly entertaining gameplay is then further brought down due to the extremely poor graphics and the mediocre sound design. As a whole, Demolish & Build Classic feels like an unfinished project or a poor Switch port, rather than a PlayStation 4 title. Even if you’re looking for a simulation title that combines building and demolishing, we suggest skipping this one.
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