Alright, whoever is stealin’ the spitoon has got to stop! Review

Alright, whoever is stealin’ the spitoon has got to stop!

If games were like pets, then Offroad Redneck Racing would be the lazy

bloodhound of a 120-pound alcoholic named Cletus

who missed the last twenty years of oral hygiene. It’s redneck, it’s racing

and it’s officially endorsed by Leonard and Bubba (I have no clue why)!

Simply put, ORR feels like a racing game that falls a few beers short

of a six pack. The foundation is solid with nice textures, smooth framerates

and a basic formula for progressive gameplay, but its technical shortcomings

will drive you absolutely insane. Still, the final product turns out to be pretty

average.

As far as racers go, ORR has the same basic elements that we’ve all

seen before: Race in league competition, win to earn upgrades, lather, rinse,

repeat. There’s also a LAN mode that lets you race up to five of your closest

kin.

The control is simple enough and any of the good

ol’ boys will be able to pick up and play. Steering control isn’t as loose

as the average arcade racer, but on the other had it’s not quite as refined

as a racing sim. I imagine that’s what driving the General Lee was like.

Along the way, you’ll live and breathe every bump and jump in the road. ORR

features some awesome force feedback support to go along with physics that just

might make you spill your beer. All you need now is a cousin named Roscoe sitting

shotgun beside you.

The game’s audio has its ups and downs with good music to combat the annoying

voices. With the music

perfomed by the cast of Deliverance, the totally redneck jug band

has your foot-a-tappin’ and your head-a-boppin with the perfect country tunes.

At first, the comments from your character and the other drivers are a crack

up, but with only a few things to say, it gets real thin real fast.

Visually, the textures and shadows are nice, but the game only runs well at

800 X 600 with 16 bit color. What the heck is that? In this day and age, with

FSAA and DDRAM, something as simple as a racer should run smoothly at 1024 X

768 32 bit with no problems at all. I just can’t understand the resource strain

from a racer. It may be a 3D environment, but what is it drawing that takes

so much out of my machine (PIII 650/256 RAM/GeForce2 Pro)? That’s crummier than

bad moonshine and stale corn fritters. At least 800 X 600 looks okay, but I

just feel that with modern technology, gamers should be able to use the resources

that they have. Maybe they’ll put out a patch…

Adding to the draw of the game is the changing environmental conditions. I

guess the hicks like to show off their studded ice tires and their bright KC

lights as much as the rest of us, so ORR offers us virtual hicks the

same bragging rights by throwing ice, snow, mud at us while holding races both

day and night. “Yeee-Haaw! Lookie here at these new super swamps and mud flaps

I got at the swap meet, only cost me two pigs, a chicken and a sixer of Lucky

Lager.”

Aside from the obvious novelty of the whole redneck theme, Offroad Redneck

Racing is just an average racer with good sound and decent graphics. Too

bad there are issues with the higher resolutions, but that’s more of an annoyance

than a huge problem. All you virtual redneck wannabes might want to run out

and buy this game, but all others should probably just walk. There may be better,

then again there are definitely worse racers out there. Redneck Racer

finshes in the middle of the pack.