off-road Archives -

Gritty Unrealism

There’s nothing like an arcadey racing game when you’re a few whiskeys deep in the rumpus room on a weekday evening. Wreckfest has been my go-to for this sort of activity for the last year or so, but while watching a YouTube video on the recently-released Screamer the other day I saw a few clips of Milestone’s previous racing game, Gravel. My eyes were treated to visions of a Toyota Celica with Castrol livery speeding along a beach alongside various other iconic AWD masterpieces, and I was instantly smitten. The guy who made the video said that Gravel was great, and I felt that a quick trip to eBay was in order.

Milestone made use of Unreal Engine 4 to develop Gravel, making my witty subtitle work on multiple levels.

Sitting on a Metacritc average of 67, Gravel, which was released back in 2018, obviously didn’t set the racing game world alight, but for those who like high-speed thrills and off-road chaos in exotic locations, Gravel is a bit of a hidden gem if you’re willing to ignore some of its flaws.

First off, it’s got some absolutely iconic licensed vehicles. If you want to slide around the coast of Namibia in a Subaru Impreza WRX or a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution then you’re golden, and more importantly, the Toyota Celica, Lancia Delta Integrale and Lancia Stratos are all present and correct for the Sega Rally Championship fans out there. The track designs, aside from some tight, winding arena layouts, emphasise long, high-speed turns and extended, pedal-to-the-metal straights scattered with water hazards and jumps just to keep you on your toes. This, along with some forgiving handling and a rewind feature, makes for a somewhat casual but always enjoyable and occasionally spectacular experience that’s ideal for a bit of digital drink-driving.

Visually, it kind of reminds me of 2007’s Sega Rally Revo for PS3 and 360, which should tell you something.

If you wanted to pick some nits, though, they’re not hard to find. Visually, the game isn’t anywhere near the top of the pile, and while it looks fine in motion, the cars can appear a bit flat and the environments a little messy. The sound is just fine, with acceptable engine notes, a somewhat generic metal soundtrack playing in the background at all times, and a kind-of-charming narrator who sounds like he’d be more at home announcing events at a steam rally in the British countryside. The physics aren’t great though, and crashing at high speed in Gravel will demolish any illusion of driving a high-powered rally vehicle as your ride flips around like a cereal box caught in a brisk wind.

I have encountered some glitches, too. Most notably my car disappearing after making use of the rewind feature, leaving me to finish the race using only my tyre tracks to figure out where I am. This has happened on three separate occasions so far. I successfully finished the race twice, and had to restart the third time because I just couldn’t keep track of where I was. Then again, I was tipsy at the time.

Throughout the career mode you’ll face off against specific opponents. The scenes that introduce them are delightfully cheesy.

Faults and frustrations aside, Gravel is a very entertaining, undemanding racing experience that really feels like an arcade blast from yesteryear. It can’t touch the likes of DiRT or Forza Horizon for technical mastery and visual spectacle, but it can absolutely bring the thrills, and when you’re kicking up sand in your Castrol-livery Toyota Celica, blasting along the beach with Imprezas, Focuses, and Lancers jostling for position all around you, it’s absolute racing bliss. As such, I’m very happy to recommend that you try some Gravel in your diet.

Did you know that many species of birds eat gravel? It’s good for the gizzard, apparently.

Played on PS4

Man (and Truck) vs. Nature (and Ghosts)

Have you ever been driving at night through country lanes? Cowering behind the wheel from looming, pale branches and convinced of glowing eyes watching from hedgerows? Have you ever seen hunched figures in the distance only to realise it was actually a road sign, or been shocked by the sudden emergence of a wayward owl? SnowRunner has that feeling in spades. I mean, I haven’t noticed any owls, but there are definitely glowing eyes watching from the undergrowth.

If I was writing a script for a YouTube video about non-horror games that have spooky bits in them, SnowRunner would be on it. The aforementioned glowing eyes are the obvious example, but there’s other stuff too, like spooky singing coming from abandoned churches, abandoned villages that are apparently irradiated, and just a general feeling of isolated creepiness once the sun disappears behind that distant ridge of trees.

You want me to go that way, eh? Should I trust this fellow?

There are also trucks in it, big trucks. That’s what the MudRunner/SnowRunner/Spintires games are, by the way; slide into the driver’s seat of a massive truck with vast tyres and chunky metal bits, and smash it into nature. Take on a task, like delivering cargo or finding a broken down truck in the wilderness, and face puddles of sticky mud, fallen trees, swamps, muck, rocks, and dangerous slopes as you try to get from A to B. You will get stuck, but with careful use of your winch, gears, variable tyre pressures, and possibly other vehicles in your fleet, you’ll get satisfyingly unstuck and be able to move on to the next helping of nigh-impassable terrain.

Expeditions: A MudRunner Game is, at the time of writing, the most recent title in the franchise, and eschews the “odd-job guy in rural, isolated locations” feel in favour of an “adventurous type in the literal middle of nowhere” kind of vibe. Most of the massive hardware is gone, with a new focus on “scout” type vehicles, there are no towns, paved roads, or permanent residences around, the player can make use of a drone to scout out the landscape, and most of the missions will be quests of discovery, looking for dinosaur bones or evidence of prehistoric civilisations.

That’s where this game’s weirdness comes in. I’ve not gotten too far yet, but Expeditions: A MudRunner Game feels even more isolated than its predecessors, and many of the missions will send you searching for little statues of odd-looking fellows that seem to point out the direction of safe routes. This paints them in a benevolent light, but they still strike me as kind of creepy. Also, the ones in the desert levels have oars. What are they doing with oars in deserts, eh? Something to do with the large, abundant rivers nearby, you say? A likely story.

I was doing okay until you lot stuck your oar in.

I got lost in Expeditions: A MudRunner Game at first, and I don’t just mean I rolled my truck down a ravine and didn’t know the way back to base. The missions aren’t clear, the controls take some getting used to, and the menus aren’t the most intuitive. I was lost at the beginning of SnowRunner, too, but it wasn’t long before I got out of first gear. The same thing happened here, and I was soon charging up rocky hillsides with wild abandon, and only toppling back down again about half the time.

Expeditions: A MudRunner Game is for those players who preferred the exploration and scouting aspect of SnowRunner and MudRunner, but I must admit that I was mostly happiest when I was hauling cargo along a busted up road with gigantic, muddy swamps along the way, so Expeditions doesn’t scratch that same itch. It’s still kind of spooky though, and I’ve seen posts online about ghosts and bears and UFOs, so who knows what I’ve yet to uncover. I’ll let you know if I find anything in the wilds.

Played on PS5