Test Drive Off Road - Wide Open
Review of Test Drive Off Road - Wide Open
The opening movie gets your adrenaline going – fast paced graphics mixed with a high intensity rock song – Fuel by Metallica – setting the scene for some serious big truck racing.
Form the user menu you are given the choice of free roam, single race or career race.
The first two are pretty generic in this type of game – you get to drive in the 3 vast racing environments (there are several “tracks” in each environment) – sorry drive isn’t the word – you get to bounce very quickly from one high point to the next!!
Then there is the Career Race. This is the heart of the game – the place where you get to buy and improve your own big truck. At the start you are limited financially to only a couple of trucks, as you cannot yet afford the likes of the Hummer.
The best I found to start with was the Silverado – fast and climbed a bit, which you need – trust me on this!
As you progress you unlock the ability to upgrade your vehicle and you will need to have at least 2 in you garage as the are categorised as “Power” or “Speed” and there are races for each in the 5 season career. In addition you can unlock several new vehicles such as the Shelby Durango and the mighty Humvee.
The driving is serious fun – the handing is pure arcade and in this game you could not ask for better. The controls are simple and precise. You could not ask for a more fun driving game. The other drivers are insane and would rather spin you into a ravine than win the race themselves. But since this is arcade style that is only to be expected – you will just have to drive better and faster. To this end holding R1 while in the air and using the left stick allows you to set your truck up for a good landing – invaluable in such close racing.
The sound adds to the excitement of the racing – all pumping rock and roll (perfect for truck racing!) and some excellent engine sounds keep the heart pounding as you endeavour to finish first.
Now to the low point of the game – the graphics. The visuals are very poor considering this is a PS2 game. They are about on a par with those in Colin McRea 2.0 on the PSOne. However there is no noticeable pop up in these huge racing environments. Every thing looks bland and you drive into rocks etc because you can’t tell the difference!
The vehicles themselves are very “chunky” graphically and few of the finer details are included. Usually when the vehicles are presented in this manner you can damage them – but not here. The best you can do is loose the spare wheel. However when you regularly fall off 1000 feet high ridges it’s a good job you cant damage your machine!
OUR PLEDGE: We promise that we have fully played 'Test Drive Off Road - Wide Open' before writing this review. The scores given above are our honest opinion and were not influenced in any way by the manufacturer or distributor of the game.
This review was written by Rory Kelly © Absolute PlayStation
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