Demolition Espionage (Teardown)
Imagine if Roblox had a mode where you and a few people plan ahead, surveying a bank and security before robbing it, while police officers respond and fight you till you are dead. Sounds like Payday, right? Well, not this game. But I get to do a lot of silly things, revolving stealing and destroying.
Teardown is a sandbox heist game, no NPCs, no characters, just me, and Lego inspired playgrounds modelled after mansions, corporate offices, workshops, harbors, etc. It's the very odd type, but sort of accomplishes in making me feel like a genius, as well as this rush that comes from the execution. Freedom only exists in planning till am on the move.
Small grips like the movement controls, motion sickness, and difficulty did somewhat impede in enjoying it. But I have to say, can't believe I missed on this one years ago. It just recently got a console release, and a new update for all platforms including PC.
At the start of my first day in my farm, with little to no furniture, and checking out my computer, my mom says we're broke and that we need cash to pay for the gas bills. A client has a gig for me, requiring me to, well, do something out of their jurisdiction. Which involves demolishing a house.
And arriving at the mission area after a loading screen, I see a number of things infront. Construction vehicles like excavators, compactors, loaders, and so on. Turns out, even with pedestrian vehicles around, I can drive any of these, and use them. Instead, starting with the propane tanks.
I wouldn't exactly say I was an expert in savage. Kind of assumed that the game didn't follow usual laws of physics, if it did, I would have broken everything down from the bottom, and just let all from the top fall and break on their own. Went through 6 minutes of tedium, breaking this place, using my Sledge. Had an extinguisher to take out fires caused by the tanks, even.
But the first day on the job didn't satisfy my mom yet, in fact, authorities are now onto me. And my first client just vanished, new one turns out to be an investigator, and wants me to trespass inside a chemical plant, and steal computers with registry data she needs.
Yes, now we're talking. Breaking and entering, I was beginning to grasp the concept pretty well, the only hurdle I've come across was getting to the third one, that was in the second floor office without any stairs. The solution I came up with is silly, supposed to work, and yet, I couldn't do a clean entry.
Two of these missions were easy, nothing much has changed aside me buying a new car in my farm. After checking my computer again, this time same client, same location, but a new challenging concept is introduced. And they're called Trip Alarms. Ok, now this is the part where the thrill of the heist part comes because I have to take everything in 60 seconds before bailing.
I like that somehow, in a Roblox/Minecraft inspired sandbox game, the only purpose to this job is to do whatever I want to the area, long as I can accomplish my mission objective. There are 3 things to collect, each has a wire latched to an alarm. Take one out, I have to get the rest before the time's up.
This mission structure is continuously followed in the next few jobs I get. With a couple of variations based on different objectives, and map design. Providing all kinds of challenges. And by different objectives, I mean finding a way to sticking it to the man.
The working class man, I have to destroy his house so that some guy can use the empty space to build his Marina. This is also the place where I get to experiment with the new tools given out, including a blowtorch. Unfortunately, I couldn't set fire as much as I want because of the alarm. No propane tanks either, and the pacing of the fun just reached a screeching halt.
Having tools is one thing, I keep finding these loot to add as cash before checking on my farm computer to realize these help upgrade the tools I unlock. Now I can use and abuse the blowtorch a lot longer. There are optional quests given as well, but under 60 seconds is quite a stretch.
The harbor I've returned to after destroying the house, and getting all the files, this time for the investigator. I have no problem working on both sides it seems, long as there's a contract, and I am getting paid for it. The stakes are getting bigger.
And by bigger, I mean by now I am stealing someone else's cars, like 2 of them. This also has the 60-second alarm trip. So how am I pulling this one out? Well, one's on a boat, the other is on a carrier. So, all I had was put both on proximity to the escape truck. Out of the two, I plucked one of the items for optional quests before executing my plan. Maybe I could revisit this mission, and get 100% finish.
But my brain power, and intelligence, kept getting worn out. This was fun, and all, but where's the absolute carnage to get me really pumped up? I want to experience real mayhem of destruction. Next mission was me carrying revenge from the guy I stole the cars from.
And the playground just got bigger, the whole I've been playing this mode, it felt like this 3D rendition of you know, those toy models you've seen people planning heists on a diorama, illustrating the planning and execution. Except with Lego blocks, of course.
6 cars to steal, only upto 3 of them needed, but you know what, I like going a little further. So I went about looking around this place, and holy moly, loot galore, I got the dollarinos, plenty to spend. That would tally a total of over 400 cash. Now all that's left is to drive the cars into the water.
Of course, I needed to finish up my business, before I could use a carrier that already has a car on it, to grab an SUV with no tires from the workshop garage. Drove it close to the shore, before executing my next plan, driving one car in, then driving the carrier with both cars next, picking up the car stationed to pick the final one, before diving that in high speed, and lastly drove to getaway car.
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Nicolas Cage Gone in 60 Seconds? More like tossing cars, and then leave, all in 60 seconds. I was like some menace to society, well a paid menace, there's no anti-establishment thing going on that's for sure. I was really warming to creating absolute chaos.
My clientele nos got bigger, I was really earning my strides. And another tool unlocked is a plank which I can use to latch onto things. I don't know how that works in IRL, and I am hoping that unlocking things doesn't at this snail's pace. I mean, this is me 4hrs in so far.
Yeah, I took a break from the campaign. With the maps I've unlocked, I've picked the harbor in Challenge, with the goal of causing as much destruction as possible. Goal of destroying 1 million blocks. And I sadly didn't have the tools yet to get there, much to my chagrin.
I have a truck with 3 crates of explosives, detonators for those 3 types under color designations. All I had to do was throw them onto the fuel tanks, smash some stuff till 1K blocks are down, that's when the timer starts. End result was something stupidly absurd, I manage to get 250K damage to sometimes 390K, but that got me less than 2/5 star rating.
If I could just get more of the tools I've seen in this video. I know I could do a number of absurd things. I still did have fun, hell, the game's concept is amazing on its own to make any scenario have endless possibilities to reach any kind of goals.
Damn, I wish the Challenge mode had everything unlocked. Could have used that Bazooka to literally make my PC struggle with the FPS rendering and physics processing. Good ol'days of PhysX.
Hi, nice game, take my like.👍👍👍