Review by Jon Falcone
UK Certification 12+ | UK RRP £34.99 | Region PAL | Developer Techland | Publisher Deep Silver
Nail’d is a perfectly addictive, disposable treat. As a straight-up speed-based racing game that sees you motorbike or quad cycle through impossible courses across the globe, it quickly hooks you in and leaves you there wanting to power your way through without any breaks, literally.
This is beautiful to play, the landscapes are perfectly realised, and with the facility to literally crash and continue ad infinitum, you find yourself impatiently tapping your buttons whilst you regenerate (which takes all of two seconds) to carry on with the brake-neck speed. It makes for thrilling courses, you can glide with massive jumps and steer through whole rock formations with a satisfying landing thud.
In its normal mode this is a fairly easy play for an experienced player, but it can be frustrating in that the controls feel synthetic. Whilst no one’s expecting to fine tune the vehicles to any great detail (though there is of course a garage and some level of tailoring vehicles), a bit more weight to the vehicles and some real guts in the sense of acceleration would have added even more satisfaction. As it is it’s a touch airy on the controls and whilst it doesn’t detract from the enjoyment of playing, feeling some real smash impact would certainly add. As you make your way through the tournament mode you can also pick up some great statistics as well, such as miles travelled in the air and distance spent in speed mode. You can clock these up quick for added kudos to gloat on.
Nail’d is perfect. It’s a fun game that you can pick up easily or spend your waking moments poring over until you finally complete it. It’s incredibly addictive and obviously the Xbox LIVE version will add a new dimension whilst the game also provides the arcade standard off-road single races and time attack modes. Highly enjoyable and hard to put down.