Nail’d is a fast-paced, over the top off-road racer featuring 4-wheelers and motorcycles (360 version reviewed here). In Tournament Mode, the main part of the game, race in different events to unlock more and try to make it to the Nail’d Grand Finale. Most events require you place in a race, but others challenge you to get the highest score by doing tricks, or by tweaking other rules by giving you endless boost. Races start out easy but get more challenging later on.

Nail’d is definitely a fantasy arcade racer. You can go ridiculously fast and make gigantic jumps on the tracks while avoiding oncoming trains and forest fires. Don’t be surprised if you clock more than five miles in the air after a couple of races. By performing well and doing tricks, you’ll fill up a boost meter which you can use to go faster. In the garage you can customize your driver, switch vehicles, and select a paint job for each part. Plus you can interchange parts to create your own machine. Motorcycles and ATVs maneuver differently, but each one is very responsive to control.

Nail’d isn’t without a few problems, though. You go so fast on the tracks that it can be hard to know where to go sometimes, and you’ll crash…a lot. But the worst is no split-screen multiplayer. You can do a system link with two Xbox 360s, and can race on Xbox LIVE of course. But it’s a shame that two can’t play together on one system. Even so, Nail’d turned out a lot better than what I thought it would be, and if you like simple to control arcade style extreme racing then you might want to nail down Nail’d.

Kid Factor

Nail’d is rated E-10 with ESRB descriptors of Lyrics and Mild Violence. Even though you crash a lot, the screen fades out before things start getting grisly. The music is comprised of mostly screaming heavy metal from some well known bands (according to brother Jeff), but I don’t know if you’ll be able to understand what they’re singing with all their guttural noises and engine sounds. One thing to note is that while the male racer you can initially choose has a full jumpsuit on, the first female driver and outfit has nothing but a bikini top. Kids should still enjoy the easy to understand extreme racing, though. Too bad there isn’t a better single console multiplayer mode.

Tags: Game Reviews