by: Robert Zacny

Off-roading may not have a huge fan following, but we can still look forward to Off-Road Drive because 1C is nothing if not a servant of niches. This is a simulation of the punishing automotive decathlons that send trucks with tires the size of the Death Star into swamps, deserts, forests, and up cliff sides.

As I'm not really an aficionado of the sport, I had a hard time assessing its realism, but the driving physics seemed awfully convincing. Trucks bounced and swayed across broken terrain, became mired in bogs, and slowly worked their way out of traps. The effects of the independent suspension were impressive: players who found themselves mired could fiddle with the differential until power was distributed to the right places. Extracting a vehicle was a puzzle, as drivers slowly worked their way free using a variety of adjustable mechanical settings and tools like the winch and cable.

Anyone looking for something more like rally racing's breakneck pace is likely to be left a bit cold due to Off-Road Drive's frequent interruptions for slower-paced sequences, like dragging a truck out of bog. However, as someone who likes just about any game involving engines and axles, I found something alluring in the rough-and-tumble of Off-Road Drive. It looks unique, and there was an undeniable primal satisfaction in hearing huge powerful engines growl and groan as trucks levered their way out of hazards, and it should be a real treat for anyone with a force feedback racing wheel.

Difficulty might be the biggest hurdle Off-Road Drive faces. This is a niche form of motorsport, and scarcely anyone I saw playing had an intuitive grasp of how to handle the kinds of challenges and vehicles this game throws at you. I saw more than a few players get hopelessly mired in a trap, and then spend the remainder of their demo time changing setups in the hopes of finding something that worked.

When a game like this carries through on all its objectives, and Off-Road Drive certainly looks set to do that, it's tough to predict how people will react to it. It reminded me of Far Cry 2 and those moments when you were racing across the savanna in a battered jeep and vaulting over gulches at 50 miles an hour. That never got old for me, and I could get behind an entire game devoted to the joy of driving fast aboard huge trucks, through terrain that thought it was car-proof.