In Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad, players race four-wheeled 800 horsepower off road race trucks with tons of options including a host of tracks, single-player and multiplayer modes as well as a wide loadout of vehicle classes including Rally Cars, Pro Buggies, and Trophylite Trucks, all in crispy 1080p, 60 frames per second presentation. With multiplayer support for eight racers and a full career mode, Jeremy McGrath’s Offroad will be the title for racing fans who want to get down and dirty on the track...

Jeremy Macgrath's Offroad is a budget game (800 Microsoft Points - £6.80) available to download from Xbox Marketplace. For a budget title, this has a lot to offer, but it also has a few problems.

You can either pick up and play a quick game in the Arcade mode or start a Career. In Career you start at the bottom and must work your way through the ranks. Rank high enough in each race and you'll unlock the next one. Finish all the races in a class and you'll unlock the next level of vehicles.

The classes are Sportsman Buggy, Prolite Truck, Pro Buggy, Rally Car and Trophy Truck. Each vehicle class has the following options depending on your playing needs: Fast, Slippery Tires; Very Fast, Soft Suspension; and Average Speed, Sticky Tires. Each time you race you earn points which can be put towards upgrading your vehicle's Handling, Top Speed, Acceleration and Braking.

The art of the game is knowing when to accelerate, when to let your foot off the gas and when to use you clutch control for that important slight boost. And that's pretty much all there is to it other than steering your way around each track.

If I had a complaint it's that the terrain, as beautiful as it is, is a little unforgiving in places. You can crash through a fence or hit a giant rolling bale of hay without it slowing you down too much, but hit a small outcrop of bracken on one of the turns and your car stops dead, forcing you to reverse. This doesn't happen all that often, but when it does it's a real pain.

You can also play online against other players - or at least you can if you can find anyone else online. Two weeks after the game's official release and I'm still having problems finding someone else online to play against. I did manage to find one game with two other people in it, but after a few races I accidentally quit out of the game (very easy to do by mistake) I tried again for ages to join another match, even attempting to host my own, but the only match I could find was the same one I'd quit out of - their availability was only shown when they'd finished their current race.

For a budget game this is a lot of fun, but hardcore driving game fans may find this lacking in a lot of areas.

6

Nick Smithson