Super Off-Road

"I bought this game. I admit defeat."

Super Off-Road for the Lynx is an off-road overhead style racing game, based on the arcade version of the same name. You have to race through winding tracks with jumps and bumps while collecting nitros to give you a speed boost. If you place well in the race you collect money that goes towards buying part upgrades for your truck like suspension and increased maximum speed. The coin-op, originally made by Tradewest, was very popular so Telegames bought the rights to release the Lynx version in 1993. Unfortunately, the conversion was pathetic and retained none of the fun that was found in the original. The music is annoying, the graphics are jumpy, the gameplay is frustrating and there's like five sound effects in the whole game. Not only that, but the screen shots on the back of the box aren't even from the Lynx version. The Lynx version has to scroll because the screen is too small to fit the whole track, where as on the box it clearly shows the entire track in one picture.

What's worse is that this game actually managed to earn Atari's seal of quality. I think that Telegames may have said to Atari that they'd only release certain Lynx games if they got the seal of quality. Krazy Ace Miniature Golf got the seal as well... that game was poor as well. Same deal with Double Dragon. Back on track, Super Off-Road is clearly an unfinished game. It was left on the shelf with Krazy Ace and after a while it was dusted off and put on a cartridge - incomplete - ready to ship.

The only mildly good graphics in this game is the title screen. The upgrade menu is dull and there is no intro or presentation. The in-game graphics are horrific. The animation is laughably bad. The scrolling of the track is so jumpy the game is impossible to follow. Same deal with the animation of the vehicles. The tracks themselves are a little better consisting of some dull colours that are similar to the arcade game but really, the animation just makes this game a tragedy.

There's only about 5 sound effects that I have discovered in the whole game. A basic sound when you pick the colour of the truck and when upgrading a part, the exploding sound when you use a nitro, and very few others. That's it. No engine roars or skids or crashes, nothing. The music is on par with everything else in this game. Although there are quite a few music tracks, they are just annoying bleeps that get on your nerves really fast.

The jumpy graphics sink the game on the verge of simply unplayable. It's like playing a game in slow motion with half of the frames cut out. You try and turn left, but you end up turning completely around because you don't know when to stop. If you're driving in the middle of the road and go over a jump, you end up on the bottom of the road for some reason. Turning around corners is a mission. It's easy to over steer and under steer - because one mistake can blow the whole race, you often find yourself trying too hard.

The computer racers don't make it any easier for you. They often ram you into walls, and you frequently get stuck in the edges of the track boundaries, forcing you to turn right around in order to release your truck. The game's totally unfair. The computer trucks show no mercy as they cruise around the track easily, mocking the fact that there is no difficulty selection. Sometimes nitro boosts and money show up on the course, but naturally the computer trucks collect them before you can get the chance. After each race you get the opportunity to go to the shop and spend the money you earned on upgrades. However, the only thing worth buying are the nitros. All the parts like suspension and increased acceleration are useless. They don't even work. I once upgraded my acceleration and maximum speed to the fullest, but I still got hammered by the computer.

A sad excuse for a game. Fans of the original and anyone else who is even remotely interested in racing games will not like this. It's a piece of unfinished garbage that should never have been released. If Atari wanted to release an unfinished game then they should have released a good one i.e. Alien vs Predator, Ultra Vortek or Guardians: Storm Over Doria.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 01/17/02, Updated 12/24/03