Game Review: Turbo Dismount

Game: Turbo Dismount
Console: PC
Developer: Secret Exit
Release Date: 10th January 2014

Turbo Dismount is trial and error style high score based vehicular crashing sandbox game with a variety of levels built in, and many more available from the Steam workshop. There's also a choice of cars, crash test dummies and obstacles to cause the maximum amount of carnage. Gameplay is simple; pick a level, set up your vehicle, rider and obstacles, then set your speed gauge and watch the mayhem unfold. Or not. It's all about planning and retrying until something huge happens.

Most of the inbuilt levels are designed well and present players with many opportunities for different crashes in a variety of the game's vehicles. Other levels are based around a singular gimmick like a big jump, or a loop the loop, but still present opportunities for playing around with the game's obstacles. There's only a couple of the inbuilt levels, and maybe 2 or 3 of the vehicles which present very little opportunity for fun. With the Steam Workshop levels, this isn't so much of an issue, but there's no such luck for vehicles; players are stuck with what they're given.

That's not to say there isn't a good variety and selection of vehicles, but there's definitely tiers of usage. The fastest ones often present the most opportunity for chaos, followed by those which can easily be fallen off, followed by the rest of the selection, with the slowest options trailing behind even them. I found myself picking many of the same vehicles for most of the levels of the game; only some of the workshop levels were creative enough to reward abstract vehicle choice.

The obstacles provide for some creative thinking, as players are able to launch themselves at walls, straight upwards, or into 10 bowling pins if desired. The combination of so many variables, including the character poses and preset/manual steering means that there's a huge amount of possibilities for playing any level, especially when the dismount speed and timing are taken into consideration.

Audiovisually the game gives off a distinct style, with orange and brown hues dominating much of the look of the game, and funky music giving a real 70s vibe to the experience. While there's not a lot of detail on other cars or crashable objects, there really doesn't need to be; in many workshop levels where there's lots of stuff onscreen, the game tends to drop in frame rate, so it's not hard to work out why many of the preset levels are fairly simple.

Overally Turbo Dismount is a fun sandbox game for crashing vehicles with; if you like getting on global leaderboards, then it's probably not the game for you - my best was around 5000th place on a level. This means that its really up to the player's interest level and attention span as to how much enjoyment they can get from the game; without any real completion goals, playing around until you get bored is the name of the game.

Rating: 73/100
Grade: C