So I Tried... Onrush

Each edition of So I Tried… I will try a game that I have never tried before. Will I find something new to love? Will I find something new to despise? I’ll take a full half hour, no matter how bad it gets or how badly I do, to see if this is the game for me. Due to it being included as one of the free games available through PlayStation Plus this month, I decided now was as good a time as any to try out the PlayStation 4 version of Onrush.

What I thought it was

The release of Onrush seemed to come and go with very little fanfare or acknowledgement. From the little I know prior to playing, it’s an arcade-style car combat game akin to something like Destruction Derby or Burnout with added objectives thrown into the mix. I’d hazard a guess that there’s a good dollop of environmental destruction included in there, too.

What it actually is

It turns out that Onrush is a fair bit deeper than I initially thought. It’s an arcade car combat game where two teams of six compete to be the first to satisfy predetermined objectives. These tasks include exhausting a set amount of boost meter or adding to an ever decreasing timer by driving through checkpoints. There are different classes of vehicles, each possessing their own set of special skills and an ultimate ability. There are also fodder vehicles racing alongside the main combatants; taking them out serving as a means to acquire more boost and stay with the main pack of cars. Onrush is essentially a racing MOBA.

Will I keep playing

I’m undecided at the moment. The core gameplay is solid (even if I do seem to crash exponentially often) but the presentation is irritatingly garish and loud, while the single-player mode is already wearing thin. If I can grab a few friends to team up with in online multiplayer, I can see Onrush being a fun game to mess around with on occasion, but I’m not in any hurry to play much more of it solo.