There have been some pretty awesome racing games over the years. But it’s easy to forget some of the good ones among the bunch, mostly because many exist under the refuse; the copy-and-paste corporate slop, and the uninspired or unintuitive outings from studios that make it feels like you have to travail through their outings given their perfunctory and oftentimes vapid designs.
However, I thought it would be nice to go over some of the hidden gems (more or less so) from studios that pumped out games during the sixth generation of gaming for the Xbox 360, PS3, and sometimes PC that hearkens back to fun and innovation over just another by-the-books outing that leaves gamers feeling like they have to traipse through the offerings to avoid feeling burned or as if your time has been wasted. Let’s start with Techland’s duo of Nail’d and Mad Riders.
1: Nail’d
Nail’d was published by Deep Silver and developed by Techland on the Chrome Engine. The highlight for this game was the narrow FOV that gave the impression you were moving super fast, and the sometimes breathtaking views as you would make quite a leap of faith from a massive ledge and experience a truly breathtaking view of the large expanse of area below. The design of the levels and the way the races played out – with large jumps and steep drops – were almost captivating enough to give you vertigo.
I actually enjoyed Nail’d for what it was. I originally played it back when it came out, but I only put a couple of hours into it before putting it down due to a busy schedule. I picked it up again recently and put more time into it, enjoying the brisk pace of the levels and the verticality of the track design. The rock music was fitting, but there just weren’t enough track variety…. which is actually a bit of a double entendre because, because the race tracks were a bit lacking in variety too.
While you can complete the career mode in about two sittings, and the option of the motorbike and ATV makes for some good gasmeplay diversity, there are some issues. The motorbikes have awful physics and handling, and don’t feel very fun to play; the ATVs have great mechanics and handling. Another upside is that even as you unlock parts, certain tracks and races encourage different loadouts, so you might need better handling for one set of challenges, or more speed for another. This encouraged players to mix and match parts throughout the career mode, rather than just having one meta-build.
However, the lack of track variety and lack of being able to do stunts, meant that you have to redo a lot of the same tracks over and over. And the stunt challenges are frustrating because you only get stunt points by passing through gates rather than pulling off stunts. However, as a game you pick up and play for a bit just to get your jollies in, experiencing some of the awesome scenery in certain tracks – especially the one by the riviera – makes Nail’d a worthwhile venture for gamers who enjoy rock music, verticality, and 4×4 off-roading.
2: Mad Riders
Ubisoft published Mad Riders, but Techland was still the developer, spending two years working on this outing, arriving in 2012, following the initial 2010 release of Nail’d. The Chrome Engine 4 was used to power this bad boy, and you could definitely see some of the under-the-hood upgrades at play. The levels have a lot more moving parts, there are far more mechanics – such as manual stunts (whoohoo!) and shortcuts you can unlock. The added mechanical depth gives Mad Riders a good amount of replayability, especially for multiplayer, which includes online, LAN and split-screen play.
This is definitely a game you play with some friends on a sunny weekend afternoon, cracking jokes and enjoying all of the crazy hi-jinks the game has to offer. The levels aren’t quite as expansive in Mad Riders as they are in Nail’d, as they are more streamlined and focused – but you still get tons of opportunities too pull of tricks in the game. Mad Riders as a pseudo-sequel to Nail’d works because they refined a lot of what was missing from Nail’d and provided it in a more streamlined and polished package… save for the ATV physics.
Weirdly, while the stunt-mechanics and pulling off tricks feels really good in Mad Riders and quite natural, and the unlockable paints, driver skins, and ATV/buggy types are all fantastic, the problem, is that Mad Riders has some wonky turning physics. When moving fast the ATVs and buggies feel good and responsive, but when you have to make precision turns at lower speeds, the vehicles have finicky turning ratios with overturned sensitivity. This means if you have to make a small adjustment in a turn, you’re more likely to get jammed on geometry or stuck on an object as you ram into a wall or debris. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does… oh boy do you feel the jank.
That being said, Mad Riders has some very tropical environments, mostly set in the jungle, the ruins, or around ancient caves. It lacks the more wide-open vistas present in Nail’d, and sadly you don’t get the same jaw-dropping vertical drops that really helped Nail’d stand out. However, the faster races, stunt mechanics, and a more streamlined career do make up for it. Keep in mind that the career mode is very short here. You can burn through it in a single sitting. Unlike Nail’d, though, the career doesn’t feel artificially extended or stretched out longer than it needed to be.
It has a few cool modes, too, such as the Arena mode where you have to ride around an open-arena, catching checkpoints before your opponents. There is the Stunt mode, where you have to pull off enough tricks and score points to top the leaderboard, the standard Race mode where you complete laps, a Time Attack, and a Ghost mode, where you have to do a one-on-one against a ghost and beat them to the finish line. Another minor but noticeable drawback is that there are no point-to-point races in Mad Riders like there is in Nail’d, which is a bummer, and the music selection is even slimmer and less pronounced than its predecessor.
3: Insane 2
I had this game in my library for ages… ages… ages. I had never had time to play it, but I always thought the logo, box art, and splash screens were awesome. I finally booted it up and played through it and… well, it’s a mixed bag. The thing is, Insane 2 is a sequel to Insane. I only vaguely remember the original, but it was lauded for its realistic off-road driving and physics and having a good selection of real-life off-road vehicles spread across real-world locations.
Insane 2 arrived eleven years later on PC for Steam and Windows. Developer Targem and publisher Game Factory Interactive took a decidedly different approach with the sequel, making it more like a PC-version of MotorStorm rather than keeping it focused on the realism of the original. This isn’t all bad, though. Again, it’s a mixed bag. The different driving disciplines, game modes, and vehicle selection are all noteworthy. It has a ton of vehicles you don’t usually drive, including monster trucks, off-road SUVs, dune buggies, a quarry vehicle, and sports trucks.
The diversity of vehicles are also matched with a smorgasbord of uniquely inspired game modes too, ranging from standard checkpoint races with laps, to scavenger-hunt style modes where you have to pass through gates before your opponents do and the one with the most gates collected wins. There are also multiple types of capture the flag modes, and even a helicopter pursuit mode where you have to stay under the spotlight of a helicopter to win.
Some modes are more or less fun than others. While the helicopter spotlight mode is inventive, it’s far more frustrating than fun given that you have to spend quite a bit of time trying to memorize the flight pattern of the helicopter in order to stay under its spotlight. This can turn into an absolute slog later into the career mode where they want you spending inordinate amounts of time under the spotlight to win. The other problem is that while the game has lots of unique modes and unique locations, it doesn’t have many locations. This turns into a problem where you’ll find yourself recycling through the same levels and challenges throughout the career mode.
As a multiplayer title, however, Insane 2 recovers the fumble with LAN and split-screen modes, giving it a lot more longevity as a racing game. The physics are also fairly decent for the vehicles. I found myself drawn to the larger trucks, as we don’t usually get to race as them in many other games. The upgrade system also allows you to enhance the vehicle’s performance, handling, and durability – with the bodykit modifications also changing the physical appearance of the vehicle. The optional skins you can unlock also add to the variety when it comes to outfitting certain vehicles the way you want. It’s worth a peek if you’re looking for something you can play extemporaneously with friends, but the career mode can definitely feel long in the tooth after a while.
4: Fuel
Imagine if Mad Max and MotorStorm had a child, you would get Fuel. Asobo Studio really knocked this out of the park. The storyline is essentially Mad Max – no really, the storyline is set during an apocalypse, in a procedurally generated map based on real life satellite data. Now usually, proc-gen maps are personality-free husks, void of creativity. But Fuel is filled with creative verve. The designers really pushed the art direction in the right way, in a good way.
The open world map consists of multiple zones – you can travel to them freely using the open-world free-roam mode, without any loading screens. However, it would likely take you real life DAYS to venture to sector. Typically with a map this big you would think that the races would be boring and generic, but they’re anything but that. The level designers did a fantastic job crafting a lot of cool aesthetic landmarks and points of interests throughout each zone, and the races consists of both lap-based and point-to-point races. They’re challenging, unique, and most of all, fun. This is because the game encourages you to find a route that best suits your play-style. So there are plenty of shortcuts and alternative routes to discover.
The real highlight here are the vehicles, though. They all look like they come right out of Mad Max; dune buggies, motorcycles, sports cars, muscle cars, semi trucks, monster trucks, roadsters, ATVs, and all manner of 4x4s. The vehicle list is very extensive, and each one has its pros and cons. That’s another highlight, just because you unlock a new vehicle doesn’t mean it’s objectively better than the starter vehicles – this is because some tracks are tight and small, and so you need precision handling, suspension articulation and small cornering radii rather than horsepower and performance, so sometimes a slower vehicle with better handling and grip is the better option. This sees you mixing up and choosing different vehicles for different races and challenges as you progress through the game world, unlocking new areas, new challenges, and new content.
Another neat highlight is that you can unlock new vehicles, paints, character customization, and liveries by exploring the open world. This gives you a reason to just drive around, which is cool. The vehicle physics are also very grounded, with each vehicle feeling very weighty and appropriate to its size. It definitely requires some getting used to, but I really like how gritty and heavy the vehicles feel here, it really matches the stark, semi-apocalyptic environments. It’s a shame this map wasn’t used in another game, because despite being made back in 2009, this game visually still holds up really well. Heck, if this map was dumped into 2015’s Mad Max game, it would have fit in perfectly.
As for the downsides, the game’s career can feel like a slog. You basically have to use different vehicles to complete different career tasks, but in order to unlock those vehicles you have to complete challenges. It also requires replaying a lot of already completed career tracks on harder difficulty settings using newly unlocked vehicles, so you can unlock new maps. It can be fun in spurts, but can definitely start to feel like a slog as you move closer toward the end.
The lack of power-ups or any combat mechanics also takes away from the racing a bit – harpoons or some kind of firebombs would have added a lot to the game. But still, the physics, game map, visuals, and art direction carry the game a lot. It’s a shame that other than Unkle’s “Burn My Shadow”, there is nothing but generic guitar riffs that make up for the game’s in-game music tracks. It was a missed opportunity not to have more heavy metal tracks to fill out the game’s musical roster. Still, if you want a game you can play off and on for some time that feels like it has a lot of lore without doing any kind of lore-dumping on you, and something that feels very similar in tone and handling to Avalanche Studios’ Mad Max, then Fuel is a very good substitute.
5: Fatal Inertia
This is a bit of a hard sell for a number of reasons, mainly because it has a lot of good things about it, but also a ton of things that make it insufferable. It feels bad because there are some good reasons to play it, but also some reasons to avoid it if you have a short temper and don’t feel like being frustrated playing the game. This Unreal Engine-powered racer isn’t particularly visually impressive and it’s not terrible fast, but ther are some races that give you constant boosts to make it feel faster than a standard race, but the real highlight is the unlockables and customization.
You have four different chassis but a number of upgrades to unlock for them to change the stats, handling, performance, and look. This gives you a lot of ways to customize your vehicle, not unlike F-Zero GX on the Gamecube. The big difference here is that you also get powerups like in Aero Gauge or Extreme-G, and this can radically change the outcome of a race. The handling of each machine is distinct and changes even more-so depending on the upgrades you unlock and apply by completing the championship races.
There is no difficulty setting, so you’re basically encountering more difficult challenges by simply progressing through the championships. One highlight is that there are lots of different track variations set across a handful of biomes, including deserts, volcanoes, tropical islands, frosty mountains, and dense jungles. Much like Criterion Games or Ghost Games with how they would take large sandbox style maps and create different tracks for various levels in Need For Speed, Koei did something similar here with Fatal Inertia, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Unlike Nail’d or Insane 2, there is enough track variation so it never feels stale.
The issue, however, is the physics… or rather, the lack of physics. Majority of the environment is static, so if you bump into a tree branch, a shrub, a pylon, or even the corner of a wrecked ship, your vehicle will get stuck. Unlike Insane 2 or Fuel where there was a healthy amount of environmental physics where you could push wrecks out of the way, burst through thickets, or trample down small shrubs, all of the environmental objects in Fatal Inertia are solid as stone. This wouldn’t be an issue if some of the stages weren’t so dense and had such tight corners.
This results in some stages feeling horrible to race through as wings or spoilers can get caught on protuberant geometry, and it’s easy to lose races because of a single wrong turn. To make matters worse is that sometimes the physics will go wonky if you get hit with some of the offensive weapons, turning your hover craft upside down or spinning in wild directions. These kind of buggy elements really dampen the overall experience, making it feel like a less polished version of Jet Moto 3.
However, the split-screen career mode adds a ton of replayability challenge to the game that makes it way more tolerable to play. Fatal Inertia was never going to be compleat within the sci-fi racing genre, but it could have been slightly better than what it ended up being with just a bit more love and care applied to the polish pass before release. However, if you wanted something similar to Quantum Redshift from the OG Xbox but for the Xbox 360 or PS3, Fatal Inertia isn’t the worst option out there.
