Coffin Dodgers Review

Coffin Dodgers is as the name suggests a group of elderly people desperately avoiding deaths charismatic stare. However this batch of pensioners are trying to slip deaths grip by boosting around on highly modified mobility scooters after entering into a morbid wager to stay alive, which sounds as awesome as it is to play.

Think of it as Mario Kart if they aged about seventy years, the concept is pretty much exactly the same. Starting on relatively oval simple tracks you can easily negotiate up to tight tricky courses that really test your skill, especially if you have death himself or a rival elderly competitor trying to hit you with his or her walking stick (or firing a Uzi at full auto at you) it becomes rather interesting.

The track layouts are tough but easy to master with a bit of practice, the odd jump will throw you off course if you hit a speed boost at the wrong moment. Oncoming traffic can really put a downer on you race, not to mention alien space craft tractor beams but the concept works because it’s done in a comical way that’s really enjoyable to play.

I started the story mode as Rudolf ‘The Red Horn’ Hoffman who according to the character bio is an ex German world war two pilot. There are six more old codgers to choose from. These are a former celeb, one of the original Harley riders, a retired Amish sheep farmer, a mad scientist, and then there are the two female old age pensioners one who in her youth was a playboy centerfold model and the other a feisty old busybody. The tutorial is short and simple getting you used the controls, track layout and combat system. I used a controller making the entire process more manageable, but I was hooked. The gameplay customisation and racing is frustratingly addictive. You will blast into the lead with your walking stick waging back and forth, drifting into the corners hitting all the speed boosts and power ups you can get but it’s what’s behind you that makes or breaks a race.

Everything is throw, fired or dropped to really hamper your progress, missiles, gunfire, defibrillator discharging all head your way knocking you off your prized mobility scooter multiple times per race. Oil can be dropped giving you no chance in a crucial corner or overtake, it’s frustrating because you can be leading until the last lap get destroyed and need to make up five to eight places with hardly any time. Sometimes you scrap through, sometimes you sadly don’t but that’s all part of the fun, the game just works and did I mention there are zombies.. Yeah! A game isn’t complete nowadays without a zombie in it, the resurrected death plague and blight the race track with the same ease and speed as real life pensioners (slow and dithering) which doesn’t really matter as you easily slice through them like a pair of dentures through a werther’s original.

The customisation is a fantastic feature that works alongside the games main story as you earn money from winning or attempting to win each race. You can choose a variety of colour schemes and decals to improve to look, upgrade the engine to really enhance your speed and get new melee weapons to hit a bit harder in that all important strike.

Coffin Dodgers does become repetitive but that doesn’t really matter because it’s cheap at £9 which is full retail without a Steam sale (minus 20% and you’re looking at £7) it offers a story mode, single races and full multiplayer to go head to head with your friends. It’s a game I’ll be keeping in my collection for the foreseeable future, my girlfriend is even thinking about getting a copy as she’s a major Mario kart fan. It really is great fun.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.