XBLArcade.com stopped by the Slick Entertainment booth today at the Penny Arcade Expo to give Scrap Metal a go. We were introduced to it as “a top down racer similar in-style and gameplay to the classic Super Off Road,” says Nick Waanders as he shows us the controls for our attempt at the off-road track racing mission using a big monster truck. As we start, Nick points out that this is just one of many exciting asphalt and off-road tracks with lots of customizable vehicles.

Racing around the track, we soon discover that there are power-ups we can collect, such as nitro boost. The race is heated and we’re excited as we drift around corners while being shot at by opponents. Nick tells us that “you also have weapons at your disposal,” as we start to loose ground, falling from second place.

As we’re trying to catch our opponents, Nick states “the game will feature local and online multiplayer,” and that’s when we truly realize the potential of this addictively fun top-down racing game.

As we finished up our race and were putting the control down, Nick asks “do you want to give the demolition mode a try?” to which we exclaim a definite yes.

Once we’re all setup, the action gets going fast and furious in an arena of pure mayhem. There’s nowhere to hide and the last man standing so-to-speak, wins all the glory. There are randomly appearing health and other pickups, but no health bar. “People who have tried the game so-far have stated that they would like a health bar and we've listened to their feedback. We’re going to try and get that into the game,” says Nick Waanders.

So there we are, using our trusty monster truck again to do some serious damage when we notice the red exclamation marks above some of our opponents who are aggressively pursuing us. Nick confirms that they are indeed pursuing us with bad intentions due to our random acts of violence towards them in the arena. This suits us fine as we mow over the competition into a victory.

Once we were done, we thanked Nick Waanders and Kees Rynen, from the two-person team consisting of Slick Entertainment for our hands-on demo of the game and asked when we could expect it to grace the Xbox LIVE Arcade. “You can expect to see Scrap Metal available for the Xbox LIVE Arcade in early 2010,” proclaims Kees.

If you want to know more about the game, check out www.scrapmetalgame.com