Off Road Challenge

"Yikes. Do not buy."

Off-Road Challenge is a N64 game that looked all right in the video store. But once
you put it in your N64 it certainly takes a turn for the worse. The game has no replay
value, terrible sound and graphics, and it's not even fun after playing it just once.

GRAPHICS 4/10
What can I say that's good about the graphics? Wow, they're in 3D. Um, they're
supposed to be. Other then that, they lack. Terribly. First of all, the framerate is
AWFUL. One player is bad, and then you go to two-player, it just gets worse. The in-
game graphics are awful - everything except the cars looks like 2D sprites. There's
tons of pop-in, luckily the dreaded fog technique isn't used and a little fade-in one is.
It doesn't help the framerate though. The framerate is even awful when you're
selecting your truck - I mean, what is there to slow it down?

SOUND 4/10
What were they thinking??? There's NO music or anything when you're actually
racing your truck. The sounds are basically engines, crashes, and the occasional
screech. The person who says ''Let's play again'', and ''Beef up your truck'', after
every race, couldn't be any more annoying. The music in the menu is ok, and when
you are upgrading your truck. Too bad it just stops there.

GAMEPLAY 4/10
Where are the levels? I counted 6. 6? Come on. OK, so each level has a nice little
unique touch to it, sort of, but after racing each one once you'll be desperatly wanting
more. It's called off-road challenge, but you never really go off-road - except for once,
in one part of a level (I forget which one). And if you ever try to go off-road, you'll be
stopped by an invisible wall. Maybe they should have called it semi-off-road
challenge.

CONTROLS 7/10
You can't go wrong on the controls. Luckily they didn't go wrong on them because
they went wrong on everything else. Your basic steering technique, plus gas and
brake buttons. Nothing else to really mention.

OTHER 4/10
The game is customizable, barely. Some irrelevent options that don't really do
anything at all. You don't even race computer trucks in 2 player mode...it would
probably make the framerate about 2 frames per second. A good feature (whoa,
there is one?) is that you can upgrade your truck after each race. Depending on your
position and how much money you collected throughout the race. Other then that,
there's no replay value and once is enough.

So in conclusion, this isn't a good game. Bad graphics + Bad gameplay + No fun at
all = one cheap N64 cartridge. Don't buy, please don't buy, unless you've tried it and
for some reason, like it. That probably won't be the case.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/31/00, Updated 03/31/00