Another stop I made during my PAX 2010 adventure was at the SouthPeak Games and Deep Silver booth. I was able to check out their upcoming off-road racing game nail’d, developed by Techland. Imagine a game that you can ride both bikes and ATVs; now add speed that can be hectic at times and levels that are built vertically. In the fifteen minutes that I played nail’d, I was able to race both vehicles and they are vastly different.
I started out on the dirt bikes. The amount of control I had both on the ground and in the air did take some getting used to, but as soon as it clicked, I began to dominate. Hitting the ground after a massive jump with boost just felt natural. I know that sounds strange because 150 foot high jumps and speed boosts aren’t truly realistic, but that is not the feel nail’d is channeling. Even while playing the more difficult handling ATVs, I was able to quickly get acclimated to controls and just completely obliterate the surrounding field. I am not sure what setting the game was on, but seemed like a lower level due to my very good play.
What I did notice, and was later told by the PR person, was that the game keeps track of an insane amount of data. It actually tracks how far you are in the air. On the demo machine, nail’d had gone up to over 80 miles in the air. Along with local data, nail’d will include one of the most robust leaderboards ever created, all the way down to the state level. That means I can dominate ever other person in my small state, Vermont.
Another feature of nail’d that I checked out, but did not have time to dig into, was the customization. Being an arcade style game, instead of a realistic sim, you have a slew of upgrades that are both aesthetic and performance enhancing. Just like with similar games in the genre, you unlock these over time and higher statistic modifications are available. This is effective though because most have positive effects and drawbacks. In the ones I tried you could increase boost, but it would decrease acceleration, etc.
In my short time playing nail’d, I enjoyed it. During the two races, I was so concentrated on the game itself that I was not able to ask too many questions. Not because I could not think of any, but because I was just having so much fun. I think that nail’d does have some features that help it stand out from other off-road arcade games currently available. The way that the tracks have been fundamentally built vertically instead of horizontally is something that I can get behind. nail’d will be available from SouthPeak Games on October 19th in North American and October 22nd in Europe.
Look for more information on nail’d as we get closer to its release here on GamingBits.com. For more details on nail’d, check out the official website at naild.deepsilver.com.
