''Offroad'', known in North America as ''Off-Road Redneck Racing'', is a video game developed by

Rage Software Rage Games (formerly Rage Software) was a British video game developer. Formed in Liverpool in 1992, its video games were marked by an emphasis on graphical effects with arcade gameplay. Rage's first title '' Striker'' sold more than one mi ...

for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

in 2001. It is a spinoff of the ''

Redneck Rampage ''Redneck Rampage'' is a 1997 first-person shooter game developed by Xatrix Entertainment and published by Interplay Entertainment, Interplay. The game is a first-person shooter with a variety of weapons and levels, and has a hillbilly theme, pr ...

'' series in North America.

Gameplay

The game features a variety of off-road vehicles, ranging from buggies to pickup trucks. The tracks are set in off-road environments, such as a swamp or farm land. The main single player aspect consists of a championship mode, in which the player can gain upgrades and join teams as they progress. Other single player modes are the challenge races against computer opponents, or time trials to beat a set record. Various in-game options can be adjusted, such as the season and weather. Network play was also supported against other human players. As shown on the box art and title, the game is technically a spin-off of the ''

'' series of video games. The original ''Redneck Rampage'' games were a first-person shooter based on the

Build engine Build Engine is a first-person shooter engine created by Ken Silverman, author of '' Ken's Labyrinth'', for 3D Realms. Like the ''Doom'' engine, the Build Engine represents its world on a two-dimensional grid using closed 2D shapes called sector ...

, also for the PC. The game featured two rednecks (shown on the box art for ''Off-Road Redneck Racing'') using a variety of weapons to battle aliens and brainwashed townsfolk in backwoods locations. The original 1997 game had strong sales, and also spawned another spinoff, titled '' Redneck Deer Huntin'''; however, ''Off-Road Redneck Racing'' is the only game in the series not to use the aforementioned Build engine. The relations to ''Redneck Rampage'' are low. Besides the title and box art, a few textures from the original games (such as the in-game font) are used. In addition, sound clips from the main character of ''Redneck Rampage'' are used as a voice-over during races; however, these were recorded for the original game, and got recycled for the game.

Reception

The game received "mixed" reviews according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

. Emmett Schkloven of '' NextGen'' wrote (in a southern accent) that the game was "Not bad fer gettin' back to yer white-trash roots, but it certainly doesn't have the staying power of a great racer." Tom Price of '' Computer Gaming World'' said that the game was "far from being the best unpaved racer out there, but it's a lot better than the name would suggest. Everything about it is polished, from the graphics and interface to the bluegrass soundtrack. Most importantly, the driving action is fast and furious, and offers more challenges than just following the quickest line around a track. The only thing missing is the cultured, sophisticated humor of that other infamous redneck game—and that's hardly missed at all."

References

External links

* {{moby game, id=/windows/off-road-redneck-racing 2001 video games Interplay Entertainment games Multiplayer and single-player video games Off-road racing video games Rage Games games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Windows games Windows-only games