Nail'd Review" />
Over the years, we have seen a continuing trend of video games becoming increasingly realistic as time goes on. Racing games in particular have become meticulously detailed to emulate reality so much to the point of almost not being a game. Not Nail’d. Nail’d takes that concept and throws it out the window, sets it on fire, and runs it over repeatedly. All while dodging dirigibles. Nearly everything about Nail’d ridiculously unrealistic and over-the-top that it ends up feeling like a trip through the 1990′s Xxxtreme era when you could get away with anything as long as it looked cool. And I wouldn’t change that for the world.
For all intents and purposes, Nail’d is an ATV/MTX off-road racing game. Those two acronyms mean absolutely nothing to me and riding around on dirt bikes is something I have never enjoyed in a video game, but after my great experiences with Split/Second and Blur, I decided to stay open-minded because I am currently at a point where I want to enjoy racing games. Even so, I was a bit skeptical about Nail’d. Halfway through my first race, that all melted away and I was having a blast as I flew through the air like some kind of gnarly flying death car of death.
See, that’s one of the most enjoyable things about Nail’d: you spend a lot of time up in the air at impossible heights and velocities. When they say this game is off-road, they’re not kidding! Having paid close attention to my racing statistics, I can confidently say that you will literally spend at least a quarter of your time up in the air. But this doesn’t mean that you spend a lot of time enjoying the scenery while you wait to slam your face into the ground, mind you. Oh no, while up there, you can expect having to avoid colliding into hot air balloons, dirigibles, planes, wind turbines, trees, and other racers. If you’re confused about how that works, you must not have caught on to fact that this is campy arcade racing at its finest. All it takes is a turn to left or right and you can manipulate physics to your advantage.
When you’re not soaring with the birds, you’re tearing through forests, buildings, and wrecked planes at breakneck speed while constantly trying to get the best of your opponents. At all times, you drive at ridiculous speeds, which is greatly encouraged by the number of different ways you can build up your boost gauge. The most obvious method is by driving through flaming poles and hoops, but boost power is also earned by crashing opponents, landing on them, driving/flying through small spaces, nailing perfect landings, and other more complicated methods. Sometimes, it also seems like the game gives you a little boost here and there just because it wants to.
It is good that the game is somewhat generous with these boosts because boosting is a bit more essential in Nail’d than in many of the other recent racing games. As far as I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be any rubberbanding—at least not a significant amount—so when someone gets ahead of you, you have to rely partly on strategic boosting, especially when facing skilled drivers. Boosting can also be crucial when trying to nail some of the bigger jumps. Sure, you’ll probably make it without any help, but why settle for the minimum? With enough height and speed, you can reach shortcuts that may have easier paths or more speed boosts. In other words: speed plays a huge role in these races. Why they even bothered to include a brake button is beyond me. In the several hours I have spent playing, both offline and online, I have never once pressed the LT button on my Xbox 360 controller. After all, where’s the fun in braking?
For a game that focuses so much on speed, I was slightly bothered by its length. In the singleplayer career, there are 49 different racing events, half of which include two or three races each. By the time you complete the career, you will have competed in well over 100 races! On top of that, each race is between three and six minutes long. The experience will differ from person to person, of course, but you can expect to spend about 10 hours on the career mode, not including potty breaks and loading times. If you ask me, that’s a whole lot of driving (Desert Bus, anyone?). I enjoy a lengthy race as much as the next guy, but it would’ve been nice if they had thrown in a few quickies as well.
To further exemplify the Are-We-There-Yet Syndrome, Nail’d unfortunately is slightly lacking in the variety department. Despite there being 14 tracks (or 18 if you unlock the DLC that comes free with a new purchase), most of them are based in the Arizona and Yosemite areas, so you’re going to see a lot of desert. Having lived just outside the Mojave Desert for a number of years, I can appreciate the beauty of the desert, but it tends to get boring after a while. Every track feels like a deadly roller coaster and has dozens of forks—and subforks—which increases longevity, but you’re likely to have seen it all before your 100th race.
Two other points of contention are concerning aspects that keep this from living up to the Cruis’n and Rush games of yore. One thing those old arcade games had was a healthy selection of interesting and oft-wacky cars. Heck, Need For Speed II even let you drive as a log or an outhouse. Nail’d, on the other hand, just has an ATV or dirt bike that you can customize somewhat (the same goes for the drivers). This is a nice feature, but it’s not quite as fun as driving a school bus or a bathtub. Another thing missing is the ability to perform stunts. Stunts aren’t crucial—in fact, performing them became ridiculously tedious in Pure—but it is the sort of thing you tend to expect in both arcade racing and ATV/MTX racing, and it could’ve been another fun way to gain speed boosts.
In terms of monotony, the soundtrack is easily the biggest culprit. I don’t know how many songs are included in Nail’d, but if there are more than five, I’d be surprised. You can’t get through a full league without hearing the same songs at least twice. And let’s be honest here: these songs aren’t exactly the pick of the litter. Not being part of the off-road racing scene, I don’t know what kind of music is typically enjoyed by the racers and their fans. What I do know, however, is that this is one of my least favorite video game soundtracks ever. Aside from a catchy Queens of the Stone Age song, everything has that pseudo-angry/whiney sound that is typically enjoyed by angst-ridden teens in tight jeans. At the very least, it has enough energy to help make you feel like you’re going just a tiny bit faster, and as you should know by now, Nail’d is all about speed.
Where this gnarly adrenaline rush falters most, unfortunately, is in the multiplayer. It is still fun, without a doubt, but I have a hard time understanding why we are still being given racing games without split-screen multiplayer. It’s like developers think people don’t play games in-person with their friends anymore. Sure, they include system linking, but that doesn’t help much if you want to play with your family, which I personally would like to do. I am lucky enough to have a wife who partakes in gaming, but this is one experience we can’t enjoy simultaneously. Although lacking in features, there is a decent online multiplayer mode (for up to 12 players), but trying to find other players will often leave you empty-handed because this release flew so stealthily under the radar. In my week-long review period, I have only been able to partake in two racing sessions, one of which was with one of the game’s developers.
Despite these flaws, Nail’d is still a surprisingly fun game. Once you get used to the wonky physics engine and collision detection, it’s a rather solid racer, especially for a budget title. But don’t get me wrong, you’re still going to blow up. A lot. Sometimes for seemingly no reason whatsoever (a la Split/Second) or because it is often difficult to know where you are going. It doesn’t get terribly frustrating, however; unlike the multiplayer, which is disappointingly sparse. Still, as easy as it is for me to find flaws, I continually find myself coming back for more, usually playing for an hour or two at a time. The fair difficulty, precise handling, and ludicrously exaggerated jumps all make this an enjoyable racing game that can be enjoyed by many people, especially those who remember a time when racing games could take place on the moon and cars could go faster if you simply performed flips with them. In a time when racing games care far too much about realism, Nail’d reminds you what it’s like to just have fun.
Score: 8/10
Nail’d was developed by Techland and published by Deep Silver. It was released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC in North America on November 30, 2010.
