The active ingredient of pretty much every racing game that you care to mention, from Out Run to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, is speed. Overpass might require you to get to the finishing line in the shortest time possible, but it's almost wholly lacking in that S-factor.
It sounds perverse, but in order to make suitably rapid progress here you need to slow things to a crawl. If you've ever played a Trials game, you'll know that putting the pedal to the metal can be a sure fire way to winding up head-down in a ditch. If anything, Overpass is even more exacting. In this fully-3D racer, going above walking speed into a tricky section is asking for major suspension damage. That's because you're not racing your buggy or ATV around a series of smooth racing tracks, but rather a bunch of obstacle courses loosely sectioned off by flimsy yellow tape.
There are rocks, logs, boulders, and stacked-up tractor tires to negotiate - all whilst keeping within those track boundaries. You'll drive up giant see-saws, and down into the kind of ravines that would signify a major wrong turn in your average rally game.
You're armed against this unique onslaught of physical obstructions with a handful of specialised tools. Your ride is set to four-wheel-drive as standard, but a press of the up arrow will switch to DIF mode, which grants you an insane amount of grip and drive at the expense of steering range. You can also flick to two-wheel drive should the conditions require it.
As we've already alluded to, it's possible to damage the components of your vehicle, hindering performance and handling. It's a concern that goes well beyond the current race, too. In the game's single player campaign mode, any damage sustained carries on through subsequent trials, requiring you to spend valuable money that would otherwise be spent upgrading or replacing your ride on repairing it instead.
Overpass demands as much from you as it does its machinery. You can't enter any of its races casually, whether in the single player campaign or multiplayer (online or split-screen). First, you need to carefully scan the horizon to establish the correct approach angle and speed for the next micro-challenge. The wrong sort of momentum heading into a steep climb can mean a humiliating backtrack, or even complete stasis. Then you need to execute your plan to perfection. Too many revs and you'll spin your wheels. Place your wheel a foot to the right of where it needs to be, and you might just ground your vehicle.
Extra nuance is introduced with the ATV races. Here you're also responsible for the orientation of the rider, using the right stick to lean into turns and climbs. In the right hands it will give you added weight over the key wheels, and more stability when driving at acute angles. In less capable hands, it's a serious liability.
Given these nuances, the Switch's lack of analogue triggers stands out as a negative. When maintaining the right level of throttle is so much more important than in other racing games, feathering a crude binary input method doesn't feel ideal. Indeed, we never quite felt like we had the full connection to our vehicle that we needed to succeed. [Update: Since this review went live we've discovered that analogue throttle control is in fact available and active by default. We regrettably missed this, probably because it is tied to the left stick, not the right. Called "Crawl Throttle", it feels odd and counter-intuitive to feather the throttle with the stick you use to steer, but it is there.]
The physics are generally solid but occasionally wonky, sometimes flicking you into unnatural positions. It would be fine for a regular racer, but at the more deliberate pace of this one, with this much focus on precision and second-to-second modifications, the flaws stand out rather more.
The graphics are generally a little muddy, and that's not a pun on the off-road setting of the game. It's worth noting that this Switch version appears to be a downscaled port from more capable platforms, and the resulting simplified lighting and textures don't always combine to give you the best visual feedback as to the kind of surface you're driving on. It's all sharp enough in both docked and handheld modes, although there's a general lack of personality and verve to the art style.
On a technical front, we experienced some extremely long load times, even when restarting a race. This wasn't true across the board, but it was annoying when it happened on the more sprawling races. It's worth issuing a quick note on the audio, too: the persistent whine of a revving ATV as you wheel spin up a steep incline really drills into your head and cuts through walls. We found ourselves muting the audio at various moments, lest we receive an angry knock from our neighbours.
There's a stubborn, hard-headed, extremely technical edge to Overpass that will make it tough to love for many. If GRID Autosport is about as 'serious' a racing game as you can manage, then you'll more than likely find this game's lack of pandering and polish to be downright exasperating. Add in a handful of technical limitations, and only a certain type of bloody-minded racing game aficionado will likely be willing to persist with it. If you fall within that small minority of gamers, however, then the rewards that Overpass can bring will be uncommonly rich.
Conclusion
Overpass is an awkward, ornery racing game that stubbornly refuses to indulge your need for speed and instant gratification. It makes you work for every shaved second and clean section, with a unique brand of technical off-road obstacle negotiation that will have casual racing game players tearing their hair out - and a fair few hardened fanatics to boot. Given the lack of analogue triggers on the Joy-Con and even with this hardcore focus in mind, Overpass is simply too rough around the edges to win anything more than a heavily qualified recommendation. But a very specific sort of glutton for automotive punishment will lap it up.
Comments 22
Have Bigben released anything that's above average? All they seem to do is publish mediocre games. Even Funbox had the sense to publish a good game like Everspace globally.
The review sounds a bit 'off' as very clearly this race terrain is not for speed. I expected this to be along the lines of Spintyres, but with a race aspect. If the accelerator can be re-mapped - would be interesting. Shame the review does not elaborate on that. More research elsewhere I guess :/
Hm, odd. There's no excuse for it to look as bad as the reviewer makes it sound, seeing as SpinTires Mudrunner, which is a similar type game, looks just fine on the Switch, even though that too is obviously not on par with the versions on the other consoles.
This sounds like my exact niche. I'll stick with pc though. Only due to the comments about textures. Mudrunner is fantastic on switch. This sounds even more methodical, and I'll definitely want to be able to tell what I'm driving on.
Getting it just for the Bonus PreOrders.
I think I would prefer Buggy Boy
already took it off my wish list days ago...
Hmm, sounds like MudRunners is still the best off-road driving game. This probably wouldn't be bad at a budget price but for what they are asking it's just not good enough.
@Jon_Mundy I'm assuming there is no anolog stick throttle support? And there's no gamecube controller support?
You guys surprised? Come on. If you haven’t played their games I get it. I had Aqua Utopia and Snow Freedom. I wanted to get into them but they were extremely choppy and controls were atrocious. I just turned my head thinking it could be a new Wave Race. The games are terrible. Unfortunately.
@CTmatic It seems like this is the first game this developer has made under "Zordix Racing" if that means anything. As for the publisher they are inconsistent. Kylotonn has done a decent job IMO with their racing games, that's about the best Bigben seems to have going for them. Zordix has always been mediocre though, Aqua/Snow Moto wasn't too bad as a cheap 3DS game but the Switch games were definitely nothing special. It doesn't seem like the racing division is much better.
@Woomy_NNYes There is no right stick option, but it is possible to 'Crawl Throttle' on the left stick (effectively analogue throttle). Which is rather counter-intuitive given that you steer with the same input, but it is there. We've updated the review to reflect this - sorry for the mix-up. Not sure about the GC controller support.
I'll stick with MudRunner. It's a really good game with challenge and more variety ! (plus it's beautiful)
Fun game, but even Mario Kart is more realistic...
@ThanosReXXX
Spintires is also super-low-res in handheld, its just easy to ignore it because of all the awesome foliage and terrain deformation, and yeah the visuals are already "muddy" to begin with. It's still possible that Overpass may have the same saving grace.
But one thing Spintires doesn't have is any racing gameplay. As such, I've been holding onto hope for Overpass even though I've been burned by Bigben in the past.
This review certainly sounds pretty positive. I'm going to keep optimistic, and seek out some more opinions from people who can compare it directly to Spintires and comment on the driving feel and how much freedom you are or aren't given to go off the beaten path.
@N64-ROX Well, it may be lo-res, as expected, and as I already mentioned by saying that it doesn't look as good as on the other consoles, but it does still look good enough, while this review here definitely isn't as forgiving about Overpass.
And it's not really a racing game. I'd sooner call it car-lethics, car parkour or track climbing. At no point in this game do you need to use speed to finish a track.
That is also why I compared it to SpinTires, because the objective-based driving in SpinTires is reasonably comparable to this game.
@Magician I can think of one that might count, depending you your criteria for a "good game." I've got TT Isle of Man, and it looks great, the controls are good and about as realistic as I can imagine a racing game being, and all around it's a solid racing sim... Maybe a little too realistic. The physics are very unforgiving, so you you go over a hill too fast or you start to skid, it often impossible to recover. And unfortunately, you can't turn down the AI enough for me to ever compete. I've just found the game to be soul crushingly difficult, but from a technical standpoint, it's an impressive game for the Switch.
@ThanosReXXX
Nah it's definitely right to compare it to Spintires, I totally agree there. In fact that's the reason why I'm not really feeling the negatives in this review - they seem to be comparing it to traditional racing games instead of discussing it in comparison to that game. Spintires is a great way to amble around aimlessly, with the vague intention of delivering logs, but it would be cool to have more of a point-to-point challenge.
Been doing some research and it's not sounding like a slam dunk:
"In theory, this game should be more accessible than its closest cousin Spintires: Mudrunner, because it's about beating the clock round a course in a nimble racing buggy rather than running errands in obsolete Soviet heavy goods vehicles. But Spintires' nerdy specificity and sandbox approach give it an appealing novelty value and excuse much of its roughness. Overpass is pure, stripped to the bare metal, and that's an unforgiving way to be." https://www.eurogamer.net/amp/2020-02-27-overpass-review-an-extremely-difficult-game-about-driving-over-rocks
So yeah maybe adding a time limit and a penalising reset button does change the game from "ha ha I'm completely stuck on this tree" into "damn this, stuck on a damn tree"... Still sounds like there could be some fun to have (just not at this enormous price - will have to wait for a sale of at least 50% if not 75% off)
@TheFox - I have TT Isle of Man in my collection but I haven't gotten around to playing it yet. It's just that after the Tennis World Tour debacle (pushing the game out unfinished) I have very little faith in Bigben as a publisher.
@N64-ROX Well, there you go: even other media are comparing it to SpinTires. That's a pretty stern review, though. Initially, I was actually semi-interested in this. Normally, these rock-climbing with cars type of games aren't for me, but this one somehow piqued my interest.
I guess I'll also wait for a decent discount, or maybe I'll get it on Xbox, where it'll at least look a lot better.
@Magician Give it a try. It's a well made game, it's just too hard. Or maybe I just need to git gud. But it runs smooth, unlike the broken mess that was World Tennis Tour.
@Magician it's currently 90% off and honest I think it's worth it for a fiver! It's rough around the edges but I am having fun with it.
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