http://wii.ign.com/articles/840/840524p1.html
Closing Comments
In Offroad Racing! Special Edition, you drive your monster truck over primitive N64-style landscapes littered with money signs, among other things. The money signs award cash for upgrades, but we think the real motivation to maneuvering over them is to get your money back, having wasted it on the racer in the first place. The fact that this boring, clumsy, amateur racing game is labeled a special edition is baffling to me – it is especially bad, but otherwise there is nothing special about it. Even at $29.99, you're paying way too much for this rush-job experience. If you ever get the chance to rent it, don't. And if somebody buys it for you this holiday, you should close out that friendship immediately.
Every once in a while you get a game here at IGN that we argue at the top of our lungs to review, literally begging each other for the honor to not only play, but also to share with all of you. Normally these situations are reserved for the best of the best -- games like Super Mario Galaxy and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess -- but I can honestly say that Offroad Extreme! Special Edition fell into that category today. In the end, Matt's kicking and screaming won him the day (despite my "dibs" call, and the fact that we played it at my desk), but we've agreed on a fair even split, complete with both of our opinions. In the end, I'm not sure why exactly I loved Offroad Extreme as much as I did. Maybe it was the three-frame explosions, the locked 15 frames-per-second, the tiny interface icons that make it nearly impossible to see what mode or option I was selecting, or the feeling of warm rain on my helmet while driving inside a cave (I'll let you try to figure that one out). Maybe instead it was the never-ending list of bugs that placed my vehicle the wrong way after falling off ledges, or the fact that Offroad Extreme is a perfect drunk driving simulator in its completely broken tilt control; who could even say with such an incredible laundry list of features. One thing’s for certain though: Offroad Extreme has breathed new life into my Wii racing collection, and I've got a new and extremely positive respect for games like GT Pro Series, Hot Wheels: Beat That!, Monxter 4X4 World Circuit, and Cruis'n. For that, I'm thankful.
| Rating | Description |  |
|---|---|---|
| out of 10 | click here for ratings guide | |
| 1.0 | Presentation There are trucks, jeeps, buggies and a selection of levels – that much is true. On the other hand, it's all horribly rendered and lackluster. | |
| 1.0 | Graphics Bad for a first-generation N64 game. Ugly, ugly and more ugly. Poor framerate, nasty textures, low-poly environments, lacking animation, terrible particle effects. Supports neither 480p nor 16:9. | |
| 4.0 | Sound Average sound effects and sleep-inducing music. | |
| 0.5 | Gameplay Just awful. Wii remote control is so sluggish it's barely playable, and the framerate is offensive for a game this ugly. No redeeming value whatsoever. | |
| 0.0 | Lasting Appeal If you can find lasting appeal in this game, you can also find it in bag full of dog feces, which, now that we think about it, may be preferable at parties. | |
| 1.0 |
Poor PS3 Sales Means Smaller Losses
"Actually, because the number of units sold was not as high as we hoped, the loss was better than our original expectation," Quotes from Sony’s CFO Nobuyuki Oneda.
