Review: Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad XBLA

Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad
Platform: Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox
Price: 800 MSP

Launch Date: June 27, 2012
Publisher: Reverb Publishing, D3Publisher
Developer: 2XL Games
Game Twitter: 2XL Games

Overview:

I am a sucker for a game with lots of dirt paired with things that go vrooom! I tend to be leery of offroad racing games because I have played quite a few of them that were terrible in the past. Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad proves that a game in this genre can indeed look pretty and play rough!

In this game you will be racing a variety of four-wheeled vehicles like 800-horsepower offroad Race Trucks, Rally Cars, Pro Buggies, and Pro Lite Trucks.

The game has a Career mode which follows Jeremy’s bid for the Pro2 championship within the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series. You can also enjoy the Arcade mode where you can set up parameters and race specific tracks or perfect your technique against your own ghost. If that is not enough then you can go over to the eight-player Multiplayer mode and race away.

Achievements:

Total Gamerscore 200
12 achievements
For my Achievement Addicts out there…easy achievements!

Pros:

The graphics are one of the best of I have ever seen in an offroad racing game needless to say this is an XBLA game!
There are tons of options to control the game the way YOU want it.
Love the hood camera view for this game.

Cons:

Some of the sound fx seem flat.
Career mode is extremely short which is bad for replay value but great for achievement addicts.
Jeremy McGrath’s vocal tips get annoying very fast. Repetitive. Sorry Jeremy!

Wish List:

Make my car get dirty especially when it plows through a huge puddle of mud.
Car damage would have been cooler.
I love to paint my own vehicles. Luckily, there are quite a few presets.

Final Verdict:

Overall, I really enjoyed Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad for its engaging graphics and great controls. I loved earning XP during my races and then being able to spend that XP to upgrade my vehicles. I have had so many bad experiences in the past with this genre that I was expecting the worst but was pleasantly surprised by a very solid game!

The only real issue with Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad is that the career is shockingly short. I was not keeping a close eye on time but it took me no more than two hours to finish the entire career. This hurts the replay value for me. Yes, I can always raise the difficulty level but it is still short and there is nothing driving me to play through the campaign again. However, if some of my friends pick up the game I am sure to be racing around in multiplayer though.

If you are a racing fan I would definitely download the demo of Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad and give it a try.