Unforgiving. That's not a term you hear associated with games these days, even more infrequently in the world of online games. Dark wind is not your standard "grind to level 80" MMO. It is a tactical, turn based, car combat game inspired by Car Wars by Steve Jackson. If you wanted to find the best replica of Car Wars that DOESN'T take an entire dining room table and 2-5 hours to play, stop reading and go download the game.

For those of you unfamiliar with Steve Jackson's greatest game, I'll give you a rundown of the last week of play I had.

Monday: We went out on a successful scouting mission through the wilderness. We managed to hold off a small army of enemy cars, it was 6 vs 11. I acquired some neat new "toys" I intend to use later to the tune of a car grenade launcher and heavy flame thrower.

Tuesday: Spent most of the day running races, death races, and combat events to help build up my characters skills, my bank account, and just for the sheer joy of trying to get another world record (I set the world record in the 5L V8 class on a map the week before.)

Wednesday: A small group of players decided to see what would happen if we loaded up on flamethrowers and went outside town looking for bandits. Around the third turn of combat I ask, "Hey are you going to turn right?" and he said "No, but don't worry, you won't hit me." Famous last words. My flamethrower hits his back left side, lighting his car on fire. Two turns later the fire reaches the flamethrower fuel in his car and the resulting explosion immediately kills both his crew members, destroys his car and everything in it, and badly damages everyone around him.

At this point in my tale I stop to say this: You will die in Dark Wind, over and over again. Characters grow fast and die faster. Old age is not a concern and level caps may exist but I certainly have never seen anyone claiming to have a whole squad (let alone one person) at such a level. While your gang may grow in size or value or influence there will be days when cars, people, cargo, missions, and maybe even your entire player built town is lost. Life sucks sometimes, and then you die.

Thursday: After a great deal of laughing at yesterday's hijinks, we once again went scouting out into the wilderness and found a great deal of trouble. We found ourselves ambushed and horribly outnumbered by one of the more brutal gangs of the area (AI controlled). We ran; we ran like the wind. We didn't look back when one of our poor team members got bogged down in a sand dune and was quickly and painfully consumed by the horde of enemies. We briefly said a prayer that it wasn't us and got the heck out of there. Things were starting to go south for me.

Friday: Due to a huge lapse in communication our scouting event this evening went horribly wrong. Head for the other side of that great hill our leader commanded... except he didn't say which hill and before I knew it I was cut off from the rest of the group. My Carrier Van (Complete with grenade launchers) and Apache armored SUV (With the heavy flame thrower) were destroyed, my crewmembers killed. The total losses set back nearly all the work of the week leading up to here.

Sounds pretty rough right? I say that, but yet it was fun. It was fun every step of the way, building up my fleet of cars, getting experience, and even getting my rear bumper handed to me more than once in a single week. It is refreshing to see a game where mistakes cost you more than having to walk back and fight the same monster again. It makes Dark Wind exciting and not ALL of my work was wasted. I lost 4 mildly skilled guys that day, but I still have about 15 others that had been gaining skill all week.

At the end of the day it is refreshing to see an online game that doesn't let you off the hook when things go south. It is enjoyable to play with people who act like adults, because lets face it: This game is hard and the kids and griefers of the world simply don't have the patience to play a game like this. There are always things to do in Dark Wind and the content is tremendous and constantly growing. I have met multiple people who have been playing over a year already and still haven't gotten into the meta content of building towns or trying to get championship trophies and sponsorships. I shudder at the idea of someday finding a heavy laser or rare car or maybe just loading up an 18 wheeler with two front rams and rear mine droppers and convoy my way from town to town delivering goods, making cash, and demolishing anyone who gets in my path.

So if you're tired of the constant easy road of spending 10 hours to gain a level so that the next week you can spend 10 more hours and gain half the next level, come on over and try out Dark Wind. Look me up: The Chain Gang, and say hello. I do like to meet my readers and I'll try not to kill you with my heavy flamethrower (If I ever find a new one)!

Oh and use ID # 17959 as your reference, it will give me free months to fill my car-carnage needs!

Graphics:
Darkwind is in full 3D with customizable skins and logos to place on your cars. The terrain is usually very basic, though partially because most of the world is supposed to be a desert. The graphics get the job done, but it's the physics that make the game shine. The bright side of this is it doesn't take a monster graphics card to play Dark Wind.

Sound:
Sound is sparse in Dark Wind, but again it get the job done. It contains a variety of gunshots for the variety of guns, various engine and tire noises, and once in a while you even get to hear the sound of someone getting run over by a truck. The game has a few ambient sounds as well while you are submitting your moves, which is usually punctuated by brief bursts of gunfire and explosions. Again, it gets the job done admirably but won't knock your socks off.

Gameplay:
I always consider this my most important category and Dark Wind's actual gameplay is phenomenal. If you like the sound of turn based tactical car combat this is your new holy grail. The physics of car movement, drifting, changing how a car performs offroad and on tarmac, a variety of physics related to each individual car.... I mean, it's all here. You take a truck on a steep sand dune and turn left, you're likely to simply roll down the thing and end up as a twisted pile of metal. You take a sedan up the same dune and while rolling isn't a concern you may simply find yourself sliding down the thing faster than you can climb it.

Value:
Under the circumstances of comparing this to a 20 dollar game we wouldn't give it a plus. However, as an MMO you are stuck comparing it to games that cost 10-15/month. Dark Wind comes in at 20 dollars for 3 months and honestly, it has enough content that you can find things to do pretty much all the time, making it an affordable alternative to those other RPGs.

Concept:
The nice thing about borrowing someone else's concept, albeit with your own twists, is that you already know there are fans, followers, and things not to do. This game is clearly based on Car Wars, it even says so on the front page. It borrows elements from other games as well, but in the end it's Car Wars to the max, and all I can say is it's about time someone did it and did it right.

Fun:
I've played a lot of car combat sims in my day and Dark Wind is the first to measure up to Rock N Roll Racing (A Blizzard game before Blizzard was anyone important) in terms of sheer fun. Everything about this game is fun and I already find myself telling stories of the bizarre and hilarious events that befall me on a regular basis; the good and the bad. I once won a race by gunning it around a hairpin turn at 100MPH, sliding into the embankment, flipping end over end through the finish line directly ABOVE the guy who was trying to pass me. I won the race by a fraction of a second. Fun? You bet this game is fun!

Overall:
Go sign up (And don't forget my ID #17959) and try this game for free. You'll get to race and can tag along on other people's scouting missions. If you like the game purchasing not only supports another great indie developer but gives you access to building your own cars, leading scouting and other missions, and beginning your own town in the wastes. With nothing to lose but a huge chunk of your life, what more can you ask for from an online game!?