Super Off Road

"Curse You White Truck!"

As a young lad I often played in the Arcades a little racing game in which you would drive a truck countless times around a dirt track and never win. Lucky for me, ten years later I get the SNES version of this game that took up hours of my life. Super Off Road!

Unfortunately I had forgotten the ridiculous difficulty of the game. Not that the driving itself is hard, but there is no chance in hell that you will ever beat the White truck. No matter how many upgrades and nitros you have, it cannot be done.

Gameplay (6/10)- The game has a pretty standard overhead racing view. The controls work well most of the time, with the occasional random spin-out or crash. As stated, they come from nowhere, and totally screw you over. Depending on which controller slot you use, you can either be the Red Truck (1st slot) or the Blue Truck (2nd slot). Generally, the white truck always wins, and the yellow truck always loses, leaving the red or blue truck as your only serious contender.

Graphics (4/10)- Not quite up to the technical capabilities of the SNES. This game clearly could have received a little makeover, but it remains a visual wasteland. All the tracks look pretty much exactly the same, the only change being the actual track layout. Most of the visuals in the menu and title screens are decent, but the gameplay fails. The most disappointing thing is when the race is over, and you see a horrible picture of the top three racers with their trophies and there scantily clad babes. Come on, they could have made the only rewarding screen good.

Sound (1/10)- Awful. Few sound effects, terrible music. Just bad.

Replayability (9/10)- The entire game is a replay, as you just race over and over again, forever, untill you lose enough times to be rewarded with a Game Over. I love this Game Over, simply because you get a high quality picture of your racer HITTING HIS TRUCK! It's the greatest thing I've ever seen. It's just that funny. And it's the best looking thing, graphics wise, in the entire game. C'mon Tradewest, you're rewarding people for stopping playing the game. Anyway, the replayability factor is pretty high. I don't know why, as this is such a bad game, but I find myself playing often.

Rent or Buy- If you can find this game used, which you probably will be able to do, by all means, jump on it. It is available on pretty much every system made in the early 90's, and the price will probably be low enough to justify it. As for renting, I doubt you will still be able to find this, but if you can, get it, if only for the laughs and the arcade nostalgia.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 11/07/04, Updated 11/09/04