(Part 6 of the Half Century Challenge, created by C_F. You can find their sixth review here)

For seemingly as long as video games have ever been made, there have always been arguments that have come up time and time again about violence in video games and how much of it is acceptable, or even how it could influence the player partaking in said violence in games. Many arguments have been made for and against many different forms of violence in video games, which have often led to plenty of controversies over the years, with some people even arguing that the violence one can find in video games can directly influence violent actions that a person can commit in real life. This argument, to me, is complete fucking bullshit, and there is nothing you can do or show to me that will make me change my mind, but these arguments have always fascinated me, specifically with how much violence in video games people consider to be acceptable throughout the many stages of video games, from nowadays even all the way back to the mid-70s. This can even be seen when it comes to today’s lesson in video game history told to you by some fucko who doesn’t know anything, Destruction Derby.

So, before we continue onwards, I should probably inform you all of something…… you all have been duped. For you see, this is NOT a review of Destruction Derby from 1975, but instead, it is a review of the 1976 cult title Death Race, which is actually a modified version of Destruction Derby, so I think it would still count for this review. The only reason that I am resorting to this title specifically is because finding these very old games to download and play on the internet is REALLY hard, especially when it comes to stuff from this far back, and even then, I ended up having to play a fan-made remake of the game instead of the actual thing, with the fan-made remake not changing too much of it to where I was still pretty much getting the same experience out of it. Kinda complicated I know, but that’s just how things work around here now.

For those who don’t know, Destruction Derby/Death Race was one of the first instances of a video game that received major controversy, to the point where it was even pulled from being distributed by its developer, and that in itself has always drawn me to it. When you look at both of the games side-by-side, neither of them look like anything that could possibly garner any sort of negative attention whatsoever, being some of the most simple looking and playing games out there, not even coming CLOSE to the level of blood, guts and gore that you can find in an average game nowadays. But hey, it was enough to where I decided to try it out for myself, and I did end up having fun with it, while it also sent me down this rabbit hole of the aspect of controversial video games.

The game is very simple: you are a simple white speck that is meant to be a car, placed in a black, empty void, boxed in by a bunch of white barriers around you. In said box, there are speck-cars that are driving around aimlessly, hoping they can go back home to see their speck-car families and kids again, while also trying to crush into you for the sake of taking out their anger. You then take your car and drive it straight into the other car to ram them and take them out, which is complimented by a loud crash sound to signify what you have just done, and to make you crave for more destruction, running down as many cars as you can before the time runs out. For the time it came out, it is a simple, yet fun enough concept that you could definitely get a lot out of if you were to find it at an arcade, and a buddy could even join in with you for some wonderful, car crashing action, and the sounds are also simple, yet effective enough to get you immersed in all the carnage that you will be causing along the way.

Death Race, in comparison, is almost the exact same game as this, but with a few changes. Rather then focusing on you crashing into as many cars as you can to rack up the points, you are instead tasked to run down plenty of “gremlins”, who each turn into little cross grave-stones when they died, accompanied by a shrill scream for whenever you do hit them. It doesn’t really change up the game at all, just giving you different things to run into and different sounds to hear, which could be good or bad depending upon who you ask, but for me, it is just whatever. However, these simple changes made to the game was enough to land it into the serious trouble that it ended up in, and when you think about it from the perspective of someone living in 1976…… it kinda makes sense.

I mean, think about it, where is the only place that you would see or hear any kinds of high levels of violence, death, and destruction in media at the time? It would be the movies, and possibly TV, but definitely movies, where everything else outside of that has remained relatively safe for most audiences. However, then this new game comes out, you run over this guy, and wha….. what was that? Was that someone… screaming?! Holy shit, that person is fucking dead! Like, actually dead! They had life and everything, and we just took it straight from them! It’s more simple for us to accept in movies and TV shows, because we are merely just watching people doing the things they do in there, but WE are the ones that are performing the actions here, and WE are the ones who just killed those poor, defenseless gremlins…….. what kind of monsters have we become?! But wait, hang on…… that can’t be all that managed to cause the controversy, right? I mean, yeah, it was somewhat unnatural for video games to have audio like this at the time, but look at it! It’s so primitive and basic, and there isn’t even any blood! How could it be removed from arcades for being violent without any of the gooey bits?! Well, I myself can’t say for sure what the logic behind this decision was, but if I may, I have a theory as to what could’ve been the mindset behind this decision.

See, video games, at this point in time, were essentially the electronic equivalent of a small, cute baby. You love to see them grow up, become more developed, learn new things, and expand their horizons, and we, as the consumer, are kind of like their parents, watching them grow into the bright, upstanding citizens that we hope they will become one day. However, as parents, you also don’t want to see them be exposed to all the true terrors of the world, because if they are, it could warp their minds, change their personalities, possibly fucking them up for life, and people in the 70s just didn’t want that to happen to their small, electronic children. This single controversy was merely a fraction of the process that video games have gone through in getting exposed to said terrors of the world. And now, here we are: this child has gone from an innocent baby to a fully grown, old and cynical person, having gone through many different stages of violence, sex, drugs, and other fucked up things that people back in the day couldn’t even begin to FATHOM happening to this medium. It just goes to show what age can really do to anything, not just what it can do to people, but also to pieces of media: as they get more exposed and shared around the world, people will take many liberties with them, morphing them into something that we potentially don’t want, until we eventually learn to accept them as they are, understanding they are now the norm, and we grow to love them as a result……………….. I know, that was a very weird and confusing analogy, but it makes sense when ya think about it, alright?

Overall, for the time both of these games came out, Destruction Derby and Death Race were fun and interesting titles that would have definitely made for fun afternoons with friends back then if you were lucky enough to come across these games at any given point. Not only that, but it was also very interesting for me to go back and look on these simple controversies that would never have even been considered really that bad nowadays, thinking about how video games have evolved from this simple point in time, and how we now look back on shit like this and laugh at how ridiculous it was. But anyways, I guess I need to end this off with some kind of joke like I always do, don’t I? Uh………… you may be able to Death Race, but you can’t Race Death, cause in the end, he will always catch up to you? I dunno, unfollow me and hit the dislike button whenever it gets added to this website never.

Game #604