Test Drive Off Road
Retro, for the PS1, yet great on Windows too!
Test Drive: Off-Road is an off road racer, that was initially released on the PS1. As you'd imagine, it is not the kind of racer that is the most well done out there; the least nice element if it is that the view that you have, in form of you is very limited; but that was something that the PS1 was notorious for. Still, even in spite of this limitation, the game puts forth lots of outdoors and out of the road tracks. You will have to stick to certain areas of the game, though, so it's not 100 percent unlimited, but, with each new play through, you can certainly choose to go a different way and get a different kind of experience out of each location. Tarmac is the basic type of track that the game includes; there are however greener tracks, as there are also more gravel ones. So, Test Drive: Off-Road offers you a pretty cool and diverse experience. So, overall, with Test Drive: Off-Road the game produces great results, and is fun for a while. Else, download Richard Burns Rally, for a very modern and playable rally game.
Test Drive Off-Road doesn't tick all the boxes
What's every racing series need in it's life time? An off-road spin off. Unfortunately, Test Drive Off-Road doesn't tick all the boxes. Firstly the gameplay is rather odd, as it does follow the normal arcade racing guidelines it still feels like there's a lot missing. The physics are not there and for an off-road game there is no working suspension, so all the cars will just change direction or incline depending what you drive over and it looks very silly, not until later on Test Drive Wide Open was released on the Playstation 2, which has proper off-road physics. There's very few modes, tracks and cars to choose from even though the selection of cars is rather good, there's just not that many. There's a lack of detail through out the game, compared to Test Drive 4 which was released earlier. The only positive point about Test Drive Off-Road is it's mixed league option, where you compete with different class trucks which leaves you in a very tough challenge. Test Drive Off Road 2 also came out later, but it wasn't much improvement.
