A drive on the wild side or a gear grinding excercise in frustration?
Whilst we joint PS4 and X Box 1 users wait for someone to give us a real good blast of off road dirt racing, such as a Motorstorm sequel or another in the ATV vs MX series, we get this offering to potentially fill the gap and satisfy those urges to get down and dirty in a 4WD way (C'mon this IS a family site!).
The first thing that you will notice, is the presentation of the game and the way it resembles the old Micro Machines style with an overhead camera view. A nice feeling of nostalgia came over me when I saw that, but immediately wished the view was actually a little closer too the action but that's a minor quibble.
The game drops you straight into the action, unless you go for the training option and I would recommend practicing before you dive into the career mode, but on the flip side, that could fill you with a false sense of security as the A.I. racers are somewhat better than you.
But practice mode will help you get to grips with the controls and the handling of the vehicles, and that's where the first teeth gnashing factor kicks in. The vehicle handling or rather lack of it. It is so easy to skid off track and instead of just reversing straight back onto the circuit and into the dust kicking action, with a just the lightest accidental tweak of the controls, you can find yourself going back the way you came (i.e forward in the wrong direction) or as I found, performing a do nut. This may please the virtual crowd but costs you time and of course places in the race.
Is this blamed on the controls themselves or the games physics? I'd say both.
And if you can persevere to gain the next vehicle, then you may discover that besides a different paint job and chassis, it handles with just much responsiveness (or lack thereof) as the 4X4 you started with. Annoying yes, disappointing hell yes.
Graphics;
They are nice yes, smooth yeah, but nothing outstanding. Yes I know it's a downloadable independent title, but I would like to see a little more polish for a current generation console.
Physics:
At the risk of repeating myself, the vehicle handling is a tricky business and I thought there was little to distinguish one car from the other. Controls are responsive to the point of being just too damn sensitive and twitchy, even the slightest error will punish you severely.
This is supposed to be an arcade racer, not an F1 simulation!
Music:
One of the better features of the game, nice soft rock soundtrack that captures the flavour of an event like this if you were watching it an arena or open air track. It's not a soundtrack you would want to download independently but heck it's OK
Online:
Ahh yes online. Access the lobby...wait it for it to load...and wait...and wait and oh look, there's nobody there! The lobby's are I find, usually empty, and I guess that the experience of the solo championship mode is turning people away. When you do find a game, it is smooth and responsive with just a slight hint of lag every now and then, but the online modes are restricted to racing and the online league table for the fastest lap times (which are logged in solo mode but only if you win or come into the top three)
Overall:
It's a challenge but for all the wrong reasons. Want a good off road racer then I suggest getting Moto Cross Racer which is now part of the backward compatibility options. It's more fun than this game by a long shot, or Trials Fusion which I reviewed a little while ago.
The one thing in it's favor is being a digital download, the box is not going to be sitting on a shelf collecting dust or will need physically taking to the high street for a trade in.
Look elsewhere petrol heads for your racing fun.