Reverb Publishing and 2XL Games has just released a new Xbox Live title for all of you racing fans out there named Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad. Jeremy McGrath has been a well known name in motocross for the last twenty years, so I was very surprised to find out that this game does not have a single motocross bike in it. Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad represents another passion of Jeremy’s, that of the Rally Circuit and Pro Lite Truck competitions. Stylized as a arcade racer with RPG elements, Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad is an interesting racing game that does somethings right, but misses on others. I have most definitely played worse racing games out there, but with the existence of Dirt 3, there are also better games on the market. Let’s get into exactly what Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad does right and wrong.
Story:
It’s a racing game, folks, so the story line is pretty much “Don’t be last”. The career mode does follow McGrath and the other racers through various stages of the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, but this is pretty much hinted at and not specifically stated in the game. The career mode puts you into different types of vehicles as you race through the different stages and two game types. You work your way through the Pro Lite Buggies, to the Pro Lite Trucks and into the Rally Cars during the course of the career mode. The stages are taken from various locals from around the world like California, Wyoming, and Ecuador, and represent different types of landscape. I’ll hit more on the actual career mode in the game play section, that will include the experience and leveling up mechanics.
The real story that is attached to Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad is the story behind the game. Jeremy McGrath has promised to donate his entire earnings from the sale of this game to Bethematch.org, an organization that helps individuals who need a bone marrow transplant to find a donor. This donation is Jeremy McGrath’s way of thanking the organization for their help in finding his wife, Sally, a bone marrow donor during her fight with Leukemia.
Gameplay:
Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad plays like most racers out there, you race around either a circuit or a time trial for first place and the points that gives you to be first in the overall standings. The tracks are used from about six locales, that range from California desert to Ecuadorian jungle. As you complete each race, you earn experience points that can be used to upgrade your chosen vehicle’s stats. The stats are taken from the typical car stat list, handling, top speed, acceleration and brakes. Through my career mode, I only upgraded the first three stats, as braking seemed to be overrated in this game. I was able to play on the normal difficulty through the career mode by just feathering the throttle and using my steering to work my way through the corners and come out on top each and every time.
The race tracks themselves are interesting environments to race in. I felt that the tracks were well designed and gave me various settings to race in, even though they cycled through the same six regions. Each track also had environmental hazards to contend with, these could range from falling poles, fences, rolling rounds of hay, and signs. I had mixed feelings about these hazards. I was absolutely fine with the static hazards, such as the fences and signs, because they felt like natural hazards. Every rally and off road race needs to have these types of obstacles in them, since this defines the true nature of an off road race. However, rolling hay rounds into my path during a race, made the game feel cheap, especially when these obstacles reset every time you do a circuit. I understand that the developers were going for more of an arcade feel, but I would have preferred to have just raced my opponents straight up, instead of being involved in a hay round accident.
Other then that small gripe about the hazards, the rest of Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad plays exactly like you would expect, with decent AI and good handling of the vehicles. The game does have some terrain that will actually impact the speed of your vehicle, but it’s only used sparingly and I felt really could have increased the real feeling of racing through the various environments. Overall, the game play of Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad is very solid and is what I would expect from a racing game on today’s market.
Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad does support up to eight racers online, which is a nice feature. However, when I tried to find people to race against, I couldn’t find a single opponent. I am hoping that this changes as more people look into the game, but for right now, it’s a little barren online.
Aesthetics:
Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad runs in a full 1080p HD presentation with 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround sound at 60 frames per second. To say this game is great to look at though, would be over exaggerating the truth. While the backgrounds do pop out nicely and are very detailed to look at, the vehicles seem a little too flat to me. I really wished that the vehicles would have shown some damage and would have gotten progressively dirty through the race, but your vehicle will look just as good at the end of the race as it did at the beginning, regardless of how you drove it.
Vehicle skins used in Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad do sport official sponsors from the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series, and includes fully licensed vehicles, including VW buggies and trophy trucks. As I said earlier, I wish that the sponsors would have let the developers muddy up and damage their vehicles a little more in this game, that would have made the experience that much more like real off road racing to me.
The sound is exactly what you would expect from an off road game, a lot of vehicle noise and engines blasting out of your speakers. Jeremy McGrath does do the voice over work for the entire game, giving you tips and strategies during the load screens and is your navigator during the actual racing. Like many rally games out there, Jeremy McGrath will give you a preview of each and every corner as you race. For you rookies to rally racing, this may be annoying to you to hear the voiceovers, but for you experienced Colin McRae fans out there, the navigation directions will feel just right. Jeremy McGrath won’t win any Oscars for his performance in this game, but the work is adequate for the job at hand.
Final Thoughts:
Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad is a good game for the price tag. At 800 MSPoints (that’s $9.99 to the uninitiated out there), Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad will fill a racing need to those of you that couldn’t afford Dirt 3 when it came out. The game play mechanics work just like you need them too, and the tracks feel a lot more varied then they actually are. I did not like the road hazards that would jump out and try to hit you, and I seriously wish that the graphics on the vehicles showed the accumulation of dirt and damage as the race goes on. If you are a racing fan that is in the mood for something new and cheap, then Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad will do the trick, especially when you are helping out a worthy cause like Bethematch.org. For ten bucks, you get a solid, decent racing game and get to help out a charity, and that is a a good deal to me.
