When I was asked to review Nail’d, I was a little hesitant as I am not the biggest racing fan. But with the help of a few I played this year, I was eager to dive into another one to help convert me. After playing Nail’d, I must say that it helped in the conversion process.
Nail’d, another contestant in the off-road, MX/ATV racing mix, is probably one of the fastest racing games that I have ever played, and I just recently played the new Need for Speed. So that should speak volumes of how fast Nail’d actually is. You will get the sense of how fast it is as soon as a race starts. As soon as you lay on the gas, you take off. It’s like MX vs. ATV but on speed.
As fast as it is, as I approached my first turn, I was really scared that, if I didn’t brake hard I would make a big-time crash. So I braked and took the turn but I noticed that the controls were pretty tight so, as I approached the next turn, I dared to not even hit the break at all just to see how tight the controls really are. And, much to my surprise, they are extremely tight. For as fast as the game is and how deep the turns are, I thought that I would need to slam on the brakes to ensure I make the turn unscathed. But that’s just not the case. In fact, since my first ever turn in the game, I never hit the brakes again.
Even with the tight controls, with a game that goes as fast as it does, I found myself crashing; a lot. But I blame that on user error on most of the occasions. For example, even though you fly in this game, you have boost you need to use for some jumps on top of pulling the left analog stick back just to make sure you make the jump safely. Well, I found that out the hard way. I didn’t use my boost or pull back on the stick and I missed the landing by a mile.
I missed a few other jumps because, apparently, I don’t like pulling back on the stick. But, to be fair, this is the first racing game I played that uses this feature. The other crashes I encountered were from the speed of the game itself. There are red arrows on the side of the courses that point you to where you need to go and a lot of times those arrows come so quick that my brain doesn’t recognize which way to turn in time so I wipe out.
Even though I crashed a lot, it never took me out of the game. I found that crashing doesn’t really make you lose your position in the race all that often. For that matter, in all the races, I rarely was in a position lower than fourth. The way the single player is set up is with tournaments that, of course, start fairly simple and get harder and take place on 14 different tracks. Each tournament is divided into leagues. To progress in a league, you need to finish all the events. To do that, you must finish in the top three. Finishing events unlocks new parts for your vehicle which is nice for all hardcore racing fans. I didn’t really mess with adding new parts to my vehicle all that much because, well, I just didn’t see the point. But it’s nice to have that feature as Nail’d appeals to all kinds of racing fans and not just the arcade-style racing fan.
There are other play options as well. Go Off-Road mode allows you to create and modify a race that best suits your needs. There are also the usual Time Attack and Quick Event modes as well as a Custom Tournament mode that allows you to set up a tournament using your favorite tracks. Each race earns you points and whoever has the most points after the last race wins the tournament. Then there is Stunt Challenge. In this mode, Boost Feats are rewarded with points and the player with the most points wins. What are Boost Feats? Good question.
If you are looking for a way to instantly fill your boost meter, you can do certain things to help you accomplish this goal. There are quite a few but some notable ones I will mention here are Touchdown in which you have a smooth landing on 2/4 wheels after a jump, Terminator which will fill your boost if you smash another vehicle, and Monster MTX which has you landing on another vehicle. Like I said, there are a lot of Boost Feats so play around and experiment, I’m sure you will eventually pull one off. Note that all of the single player modes are also available in multiplayer mode which is really fun. I probably had more fun playing this game online than I did Need for Speed which, again, says a lot.
Not having heard of Nail’d before playing it, I must say I was surprisingly shocked at how much fun I had with it and how fast it actually is. Is it perfect? No I mean with a game this fast there are bound to be glitches and there are a few. On more than one occasion, I found myself riding up cliff walls instead of crashing. This made me more than a bit frustrated. I also wish that there were more modes to play with but the included modes will keep you entertained for a while. And even though the controls are incredibly tight, the crashing can get a bit out of hand.
True most of them were my fault, but even a better racer would find themselves crashing often. Having said that, Nail’d is another arcade-style racing game that has helped convert me into a bigger racing fan than I was. And if nothing else, the sheer speed alone has me wanting to come back to this game. So pick up a controller, strap on your helmet, and hold on to your butts because Nail’d will give you the ride of your life.
Review copy provided by publisher.
