Boss fights in which you go head-to-head in a fight to the death are a real letdown because, more often than not, the two of you end up just circling each other with guns blazing until one of you explodes. On paper, the amount of variety offered by Scrap Metal's single-player missions is impressive, but in practice, some of the event types don't work nearly as well as others. Those challenges include a monster truck car-crushing event and a number of class-specific races designed for airboats, buggies, semitrucks, and open-wheel race cars. It's possible to hang onto a favorite vehicle or two throughout your entire career if you choose to, but the first thing you want to do when you unlock a new ride is take it for a test-drive, and there are several challenges that force you to use vehicles that you might otherwise ignore. As you unlock new vehicles by completing certain challenges or by destroying them during races, you inevitably need to take others out of your garage to make room for them, at which point all of your hard-earned upgrades are lost forever-even if you decide to recall the vehicle from the junkyard later. And given that Scrap Metal is a challenging game, purchasing the right upgrades for the right vehicles is sometimes the only way to progress.
Prize money is used to upgrade a vehicle's speed, grip, armor, and firepower ratings. It only has room to accommodate four vehicles, but by the time you beat the 60-plus single-player challenges, you have access to 20. Your garage is another source of irritation. These open-wheel racecars are equipped with lasers but, contrary to what this screenshot suggests, they can't fly. On some tracks, the camera also has a nasty habit of obscuring your car completely behind buildings and the like, which isn't a big deal if you're racing down a straightaway, but it can be very irritating if you get spun out and have no idea which direction your ride is pointing in as you attempt to recover. The top-down viewpoint is just fine once you memorize a track, but because it's zoomed in pretty close to your car in the center, you can't see far enough ahead. With so many small physics-enabled items scattered around, even simple track layouts can be tricky to navigate, and the camera doesn't help matters either. You might be able to drive straight through a tree or some other large object in the middle of the track, but a seemingly innocuous collision with a small barrel could cause your vehicle to roll onto its roof, for example. Environmental objects are also a cause of frustrations because the game's treatment of them is inconsistent. If that happens, you can either lose significant progress or bypass a checkpoint and have to go back for it. Vehicles in Scrap Metal feel very light, and it's not uncommon for them to be sent spiraling into the air by an attack and then come crashing down elsewhere on the track. The problem is that this fun can quickly turn to frustration if you fall foul of an opponent's attack or happen to connect with a trackside object. When you get used to the controls, racing in a monster truck, an airboat, or even a bulldozer is a lot of fun. Vehicle handling is extremely sensitive, so you often need to make only minor adjustments with the analog stick when you're steering. Well, that and putting your submachine to good use against opponents whose vehicles are similarly equipped. The first track you race on is a simple oval, so the only thing you need to worry about while familiarizing yourself with the uncomplicated controls and top-down camera is remembering to turn left every now and then. A small beaten-up buggy equipped with a submachine gun is the first ride that you retrieve from the scrap pile, and after taking a little time to repaint and accessorize it, you're ready to race.
Your base of operations in this mode is a garage adjoining a junkyard, and given the title of the game there are no prizes for figuring out where your vehicles come from. Oddly, there's no option to set up individual single-player races in Scrap Metal, so if you're playing solo, your only option is to jump into a career.