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 Nail'd
(Playstation 3)
Bringing
arcade-style off-road racing to the PS3, Nail'd delivers an exhilarating
adrenaline rush for gamers who want something fast and challenging.
Driving ATVs over massive, multi-branching tracks with incredible jumps,
huge gaps and twisting courses, the sheer intensity and speed it creates
is impressive. Add speed-boosts and massive crash animations and Nail'd
delivers an enjoyable racing experience. Several modes including
tournaments, stunt modes and tons of upgrades give the game more depth.
However, the racing field is quite crowded these days, and the question is
whether Nail'd has enough in the tank to outpace the competition. |
On the surface, Nail'd is a decent racer
that delivers quite an adrenaline rush. The developers at Deep River have
aimed squarely at the arcade market and it's definitely more in the mold
of Motorstorm or Split Second. This action-oriented play is implemented
effectively because there's no sense of realism in its physics or
controls. Track layouts are massive and over-the-top. Its all about
arcade-style thrills and speed. While the bikes control somewhat
rationally in the context of arcade racing, its physics model is
exaggerated. This allows for massive jumps over huge gaps plus the ability
to ride on the sides of walls or even upside down in certain sections for
extra points. Its structure is straightforward and there are several modes
of play including standard single race events, time attack modes and stunt
challenge sections. Players can choose to play either a single race or can
go a bit deeper and play in extended tournaments that unfold over several
races. Once you win a few races, customization options are available that
allow you to change you're bike's appearance. You can also change you
rider's outfit and the paint jobs on your bike. More importantly, you can
upgrade various components of your bike including tires, handlebars,
engine, and other aspects. This increases performance incrementally, but
these small changes which increase your grip, turning ability and extend
your air time make a huge difference. Races unfold in fairly
straightforward fashion with the objective of winning the races obvious,
but Nail'd adds a boost meter which increases speed dramatically for a
short time - it's limited in duration but you can add to it by running
through the rings of fire and other checkpoints along the route. There's
another way to add boost, which is to perform stunts and tricks, which
adds more to your meter. This minor strategy aside, the most important
thing you need to do is push down on the accelerator and let it rip,
Nail'd rewards absolute speed above all else.
There's plenty of courses to master with
15 tracks included in all, with most featuring branching paths and
alternate routs. Learning which ones are the fastest and where the
short-cuts are is a key element in winning races. Playing through the time
attack mode helps you learn the layout, though some are more complex than
others. The more straightforward tracks don't require much practice, but
the game's tricky jumps can take several attempts to master. Once you get
on the race track, you'll be competing against 11 other racers who are
just as persistent and aggressive as you are. Using your boosts
effectively and avoiding crashing into objects is the main thrust of the
game, but there are other things to worry about. The tracks have moving
obstacles such as trains and different types of terrain, such as mud and
dirt. Certain sections of track in Nail'd are also tricky since there are
sudden drops and missing sections of track that can knock you right out of
the race instantly. The twisting courses also lead to blind spots in some
sections, and you'll slam into walls or other objects if you aren't
careful. All this makes for an extremely challenging game that requires
some pretty good reflexes and timing to beat. The game's courses are
expansive and varied in terms of layout and structure. This along with the
AI competition makes for surprisingly challenging racing action.
There is definitely a fast rush,
arcade-style gameplay in Nail'd, but this approach comes with a few minor
annoyances. Initially, the game can be difficult with frequent crashes and
some occasionally deceptive course layouts. These layouts can makes things
more frustrating than you'd expect early on, but if you have persistence
the game becomes a lot easier. Another unfortunate aspect of Nail'd comes
in its somewhat clunky respawn mechanic. Instead of watching your bike
crash in real time, the screen goes blank after a collision and reboots
several seconds later. You watch a white screen and an indicator fill up
before you respawn, which isn't the most effective implementation. Not
only is this disorienting, since you usually end up in a slightly
different section of the track, its also frustrating. Crashing usually
results in losing several positions in the ranking, and the Nail'd has AI
opponents that rarely make mistakes. This means its difficult to make up
ground and catch up even if you only crash once, which makes some races
lost causes even on the first or second lap. You definitely don't have a
lot of margin for error in Nail'd and its level of difficulty is
surprising. The long levels usually means it takes around 5 minutes or so
to complete a full-length race, which means they can drag on for awhile.
Its not too terribly difficult, but there are some stages that seem a
little bit more polished than others in terms of layout and presentation,
which makes for an uneven experience in terms of visuals and excitement.
The game's tournament structure is a bit
too challenging and makes unlocking additional courses and levels take a
bit longer than it should. However, this is balanced off by the extensive
customization options that allow you to turbo-charge your bike, letting
you dominate the competition in some stages. Its visuals are quite
impressive in terms of speed, if not detail. Certain areas of the game
scream by at an incredible pace with some truly massive jumps on huge
ramps over massive gaps. This lets you look down on the world and
sometimes your opponents while screaming towards the finish line. Nail'd
can be a little dizzying at times because of this and it can make things a
little bit disorienting at times. You can alleviate this by going through
practice runs and learning the layout of each track. Knowing the location
of the fiery speed boosts is another way to keep you at the head of the
pack. Its difficult to keep pace with the other racers without crashing,
and you definitely need to keep concentration levels high throughout.
However, the rewards of additional tracks and upgrades should be enough to
keep you motivated for the first few levels. Unfortunately, while Nail'd
offers a quick speed boost, it doesn't have enough depth underneath to
really make it stand out from the pack.
Comparing Nail'd against a number of
excellent racers like Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, Split Second, Blur or,
Motorstom: Pacific Rift, shows that while the game is decent, it doesn't
really measure up against the others in terms of polish or depth. For the
most part, Nail'd delivers what you'd expect from the extreme sports
genre, and doesn't really offer much new. It's a fun and challenging
title, but most of what it does has been done better in the aforementioned
titles. Its somewhat glitchy respawn system gets old in a hurry and the
punishingly difficult AI makes things more frustrating than they need to
be. Even the music, with its extreme heavy metal feels a little bit
redundant and grating. Fortunately, there's an option to turn it off which
improves the game many times over. While Nail'd delivers a quick boost of
speed and excitement, once the novelty wears off, it's just another
average extreme-sports racer that lacks the polish or special effects to
really stand out from the crowded racing field.
- Michael Palisano
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