Trail Out Review (Why We Can't Have Nice Things)
There's a lot of things to like about Trail Out. It can be a lot of fun. But it already has plenty of good reviews. It deserves a few bad reviews that point out its flaws. And it has three major flaws. The first 2 flaws a lot of other racing games also have:
1) The upgrades for your car are meaningless.
They may make you go a bit faster or survive a bit longer, but they actually make no difference in whether you win or lose, because the computer racers upgrade right with you. They always go faster than you, no matter what upgrades you install. When you get a new class of cars that are better, so do they. There is nothing you can buy or upgrade that will make you faster than the lead cars. No matter how fast you go or how much of a lead you have at any point, the computer rubber bands the other racers so that they will always catch right up to you by the final lap.
2) The races are completely determined by the computer.
You start every race in last place and the same few cars are always ahead: either yellow, red, usually at first, and then black or blue later in a longer race. Usually, it's Frank in the yellow far ahead. Ivan is always last or close to it. Every single race, this is exactly the same. After completing the campaign, a special character unlocks in a black car that is faster than anything you can buy or upgrade. Because you are always behind, the only way to win is to let the computer rubber band/slow the lead car so you're close to it, which almost always happens in the last lap close to the end, which it's obviously programmed to do. Then, you have to count on the lead car crashing or skidding or having some accident determined by the computer.
Winning is literally about redoing races over and over until the random chance works in your favor - the computer randomly makes the lead cars crash and you can zoom by. And this is how you get first place: it's random chance when the computer sabotages the race for other drivers ahead of you.
3) This game is supposedly about crashing into competitors, but it constantly punishes you for any contact.
Crash into too many other cars and your car is destroyed quickly. Even small crashes can randomly destroy your gearbox, nitrous or engine, making it impossible to win. Crash into anybody too hard and they take minimal damage while you go flying through the windshield in a cut scene and end up far behind them when you finally reset.
Speaking of resetting, no matter how hard you knock competitors off the track or into obstacles, it basically does nothing. They instantly reset and are right back next to you within a few second.
The best strategy for winning a race is to never bump into anybody if you can avoid it. And for a game that's supposed to be about massive crashes, that sucks.