Developed by Midway and Avalanche (the ones who made the Tak games and Hogwarts Legacy) is another port of an arcade racer, this one has you driving large 4×4 trucks across some very bumpy environments.

Off Road Challenge is very clearly an immensely ugly game. Everything looks low quality and messy and there’s a load of pop-in and gaps in the world. The game does mange to make its 6 tracks feel distinct (there’s also two bonus ones which look similar to some of those), but when none of it looks good, that doesn’t matter much.

However, even though the game is nowhere near good, I found it to be rather enjoyable. The handling is surprisingly good – one of the most responsive I’ve encountered in a car game on the N64 and there’s such a great sense of fun with the game. Everything surrounding this is bad, but the core driving is just entertaining.

One bizarre thing is that your car starts off as not good enough to win, you need to collect money found in the level (and awarded if you place high) to buy upgrades for your car, which then help you out in later races. One huge problem – if you leave the game to swap vehicle or turn the game off, all these upgrades are on and you need to do a few races to catch up again.

It’s ugly and has some rather odd features, but it’s still kind of fun.

Fun

Off Road Challenge as a whole could be used to simulate just how blurry life would be if you sprayed half a bottle of Harpic into your eyes.

James Ashton, N64 Magazine #19. Review Score: 21%

Remake or remaster?

Being another Midway racer, a collection of their racing games would be nice.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Off Road Challenge.