As soon as you fire up Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad, you’re met with the helmet-clad visage of McGrath himself, who lets out a vaguely threatening and ominous, “You’re in my world now!” Once you’re done scratching your head trying to recall who Jeremy McGrath is, you’ll soon realise that his world is an uneventful one in which you won’t care to spend much time.
A serviceable but cut-rate racing game strangely based around Motocross biker Jeremy McGrath (but featuring no motorbikes), Offroad attempts to provide a budget-level downloadable equivalent to more prestigious off-road rally racers like Dirt. And while it technically delivers on that promise – it’s cheap and has rally racing, after all – it’s a distinctly drab, unimpressive game that’s far too simplistic to provide many thrills for race fans.
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With an emphasis on more arcade-style gameplay, the controls are simple to handle even for the most casual of racing gamers: You accelerate, tap the brake when taking corners and…that’s about it. A 23-race career mode makes use of 5 different classes of car (Sports Buggies, ProLite Trucks, Pro Buggies, Rally Cars and Trophy Trucks) across 6 different tracks that offer a decent amount of variety. The majority of races take place on dusty deserts and backroads, but there’s a snow-covered race in the Netherlands and an Ecuadorian jungle route for added diversity (though the amount of track repetition across the 23 races means you’ll soon get sick of some maps). Visually, it’s not a bad looking game – it won’t give any of the top-tier retail racing games a run for their money, but for a budget-priced downloadable title, it looks fine, with a decent amount of aesthetic variety across the 6 tracks.
The game employs an experience points system – pull off sweet turns, pass other drivers or nail specific maneuvers and you’ll earn XP which you can cash in for upgrades to your car’s handling, braking, acceleration and top speed. It’s a neat idea, one that rewards you even when you’re spinning off the road, with small bonuses for smashing fences and trees. It’s never made quite clear why you’d possibly need to upgrade any of the vehicles though; the game is so easy and painfully forgiving that even if you chose never to beef up your car, you’ll cruise into first with little-to-no effort.
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McGrath pops up intermittently to offer choice hints like, “Rally racing is about balance – don’t use the throttle all the time!” and “The clutch-boost can be useful for accelerating out of turns!” Neither statement proves true, though; the simplistic mechanics mean you’ll usually win by even more if you ride the throttle non-stop outside of hairpin turns, while the clutch-boost proves entirely useless. Supposedly a handy method of boosting back up to speed after slowing down to glide around tight turns, the clutch-boost button never manages to be any more useful than just jamming the accelerator again. But hey, at least you earn more XP for clutch-boosting on the rare occasion that it actually registers you’ve pulled it off.
In an attempt to add a little more depth, you’re also given the option to switch and swap your car’s tyres to cater to the terrain of each track. Like the upgrade system, it’s a nice idea in theory, but you’ll never find the need use it either, since there’s no discernible difference in how any of the supposedly distinct classes of vehicle actually handle on the road. Even if you use slippery non-traction tyres on a snowy, ice-covered track, you’ll still feel no real difference in handling and no added problem staying on the road. Aside from their outward appearance and the beefier sound of Trophy Trucks, the pretty-much-identical handling of each vehicle renders the whole XP upgrade system rather pointless, while the lack of challenge means the 2-3 hour career mode won’t offer much fun.
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Things are at least a little more enjoyable if you take things online, where you’re on a more even playing field with peers than against challenge-free AI racers. Sadly, despite the more outlandish, arcadey elements that pop up in the otherwise straight-faced game (giant boulders and snowballs roll across the track at regular intervals on some maps), car destruction isn’t really possible, so there’s no decimating-your-friend’s-ride fun to be had. Outside the online multiplayer, the only other option is a single player ‘Arcade Mode’ which offers single races and practice laps (which prove especially pointless given the less-than-challenging AI in the career) and a time trial mode where you’ll race a ghost car of your best lap.
It’s a technically serviceable racer, especially when played online with real people, but a complete lack of difficulty makes the solo experience an increasingly joyless one. There’s some nice customization and upgrade ideas, but they’re never more than that – ideas – as car handling feels exactly the same across all vehicles and terrain. The budget price earns Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad some leeway, but even so, when you can spend only a tiny bit more and pick up Dirt 3 or any number of superior racing games, you’re better off just doing that.
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Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad is available to buy now on the Xbox Live Marketplace now priced 800 Microsoft Points.