Overpass 2 Review

Overpass 2 is an off-road racing/management videogame developed by Neopcia and published by Nacon. I haven’t played the first Overpass, but I expected (before playing) to have the same reception to the series that I had with The Crew franchise — playing the sequel first, then playing the others. However, in this case, I probably won’t do that. Taking place in an annual series of races (both fictional and based on real events), you manage a racing team, from staff to driver. The micromanaging of staff and engineers to maintain your racing company through sponsorship deals, balancing the needs of R&D and mechanics — interspaced with racing — is the sole goal of Overpass 2’s career mode. Or you can play in online PvP and quick races if players don’t want to crunch numbers.

Opening the game, you meet Overpass 2’s lame royalty-free metal soundtrack. Loud strumming of an electric guitar and sound effects isn’t music; it’s ear torture. Good thing you can always turn it off in the settings and add your own soundtrack through your PC’s media player.

The races consist of off-road circuits and sprints, closed circuits, obstacle courses, and hill climbs using an UAV, ATV, or the cute but aptly named Rock Bouncer. Major events will use all three cars to compete for a total score at the end, with a single circuit nearly every in-game week using either vehicle. You can skip them, but I highly recommend doing them, even if they’re usually a slog to do. Throughout the game year, you travel around the world racing on multiple continents, terrains, and stages, naturally giving the player a diversity of challenges to overcome.

After each race, your chosen vehicle will gain wear and tear from being thrashed around. You can get them repaired, but it costs a lot of money; the more you use the vehicles without repairing them could lead to you losing races, which loses revenue and possibly sponsorships. Completing races wins you money (obviously) that is spent on repairs, upgrades, and R&D for future upgrades. You also gain experience points, opening up the skill tree and adding buffs to your driving ability, aiding the player.

Overpass 2’s driving is standard stock realism. Obstacles and track textures require you to shift between 4WD and DIFF and manoeuvre around perfectly to prevent slowing down or losing control of the car mid-race. If you have ever played MudRunner or SnowRunner, you know what I mean when I say the 4WD shift is for general use while the DIFF shift is for inclines and uneven surfaces. However, unlike the ‘Runner games, it’s usually faster to cheese the tracks by driving carefully over them and speeding up for controlled jumps in 4WD. But there is a risk to doing it, and it doesn’t work in the hill climb events.

If you make mistakes like losing control and driving directly into the low-textured crowd, you get time penalised, which is more of a slap on the wrist in this instance. While maintaining how fast you make your turns, it’s hard to judge at what speed you need to be when covering rockier ground. Many times, I was bucked from the ATV in a perfect summersault because I was too fast (at least 25 km/h) to move over a few rocks and a log. In the other vehicles, especially the Rock Bouncer, you can also flip with no way to get back on your tires (or tyres for the Americans). I found it better to simply use the 10 restarts you get per race to hit those perfect times, though it doesn’t really matter at the start of the game where you place on the leaderboard.

AI drivers also make mistakes, making for a funny spectacle the first time you see a ghost quad bike ride up beside you.

Outside of the career mode, you can do individual races or go online in PvP matches and play against people who are the target audience for these games. Or play against people like me who were still perfecting their skills, turning a race into a bumping match as we attempted to claw our way to the front, over-correct, and burn-out on the last turn to the finish line. You can guess who did that.

Given the number of things to do in Overpass 2, I became bored of having to race on similar but not the same types of maps and terrains. The off-road desert racing is a highlight for players after spending time in muddy trenches and woodlands. You’ve got to like off-road racing (a lot) to continue playing this game. It doesn’t negate the quality of the gameplay, yet the quality of the visuals in some parts are a bit too basic for my liking. You have to ask, for the sake of time and money, do I like or dislike it? And for what it’s worth, I dislike it, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad racing game.

I’ll just stick to my Forzas, Crews, and Midnight Clubs for a “racing” kick.