Nail'd

Rating: E10+

Score: 4.5/10

Anyone remember Pure? How about Motorstorm or Excite Truck? These games defined off-road racing in a fun, arcade-style form. Now, years later, Nail'd is trying to speed over the treaded ground to advance to first, but is it already too late? This game is available for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

The story begins you're a driver of ATVs and dirtbikes. ...What? That's your story, and you race in tournaments and quick play to compose the rest of the game.

The gameplay will need to hold the game up by itself. It's a typical off-road racing game with all the core elements: tricks, breathtaking scenery you fly off of, and cool handling of vehicles. Oh wait, Nail'd has none of those, I must've been thinking of Pure again. You drive and jump off ramps, which constitutes the whole game. Tricks? There are none, you just...float in midair.

Actually, correction, not "float" per se but drive. You can move your ATV and dirtbikes fairly freely in midair regardless of what laws of physics should dictate. This isn't a "flaw", it's a "feature". Bikes and ATVs can be set to capitalize on their midair movement.

Bikes and ATV can also be changed around to make for faster acceleration, handling, and boosting regeneration/power. It all seems to be on a rather small scale, since you can still be the slowest off the starting gate with the fastest acceleration possible.

All that’s been stated thus far doesn't explain why Nail'd just isn't...fun. It's not the handling, or the customizing, or even the shallowness of the game modes. It's the fact it doesn't seem to have a clear genre. The lack of tricks would suggest a more serious off-road racing game with proper physics and licensing, but the grandness of some of the jumps and the ridiculous nitro boost physics points towards a laid-back arcade style. The mixture? An awkward hybrid that doesn't outdo either series it's pulling from. Not even the good music can pull the nails off this game's coffin.