Gravel’s blend of simulation and arcade racing feels amiss when standing next to its rough and tough personality. In an era where it’s hard for any racing game to stand out, Gravel feels especially generic in comparison.
Gravel
Developer: Milestone S.r.l.
Price: $49.99
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
MonsterVine was provided a PS4 code for review.
Milestone S.r.l, the studio behind Gravel, does a solid job of giving its game a personality that stays consistent throughout its presentation. It’s rough and tough gear head off-road racer is supported with blaring metal guitar riffs, weird live action intros for the boss battles, and a career mode presented as an extreme sport web show. That’s all fine I suppose, I think any racing game should establish its attitude and personality in order to resonate with the player. But unfortunately none of Gravel’s personality comes through in the gameplay in a meaningful way.
Gravel is caught up trying to deliver a hybrid of simulation racing and arcade style driving. While that system has been proven to work – just look at the Dirt series – it makes Gravel’s gameplay feel boring next to its more “in-your-face” presentation. The end result is generic and uninspired.
Many of the tracks, such as the cross-country maps, where long stretches of road make the game feel fast and loose, seem better designed for a full on arcade racer. Instead of enjoying the wild sense of speed, which the game does nail, I had to worry about traction around turns and whether I was over or under steering my vehicle.
Even the smaller circuit style tracks, which are designed for more nuanced racing, felt contrived in order to serve the simulation side of the gameplay. I typically enjoy technical tracks in racing games, but the design of the courses here conflicts with Gravel’s attitude. Given its presentation, it felt more natural to crash into my opponents and send them off the road, but that always proved detrimental to the style of racer Milestone created here. I wanted to play the game more like an arcade racer, but it’s hybrid style kept me from doing that, thus kept me from enjoying Gravel.
There are various vehicle types like trucks, rally cars, etc., but I didn’t feel much difference in the handling in each class. I never had to adapt to a different style of racing whenever I switched vehicle types. That lost sense of variability carried over into the tracks. While rain and snow made some courses feel slick, it did little to make the tracks feel dynamic. All of this created a negative impact on the career mode, which already had a boring structure.
The career mode is presented as a season of a web show, “Off-Road Masters.” The season is divided into multiple episodes you unlock by collecting stars from each race you compete in. But since every car and track was similar, I felt like I bounced from race to race. Instead of meaningful progression, the career mode felt like an unfulfilling trudge. There are boss battles across the career mode but those were just more difficult races. It didn’t do much to add variety to a career mode that needed it.
Outside of the career mode, there’s time-attack, free race and challenge race modes, all of which are self-explanatory. Online multiplayer is also present and allows you to create your own races with custom presets. The online was fine but a little inaccessible at times. For example, whenever I created a race with all of the settings I wanted, I didn’t notice that all of those settings would reset if I decided to change the discipline type. The first time I ran into that blunder I was already loaded into a race and immediately notice the wet track I was expecting was replaced with a very dry one.
Across all the modes you’ll increase your driver level. You do so by performing tricks, like drifting and going off jumps. I try not to bury a hook like this late into a review, but the tricks sound cooler on paper than it does in execution. The drifts barely feel like drifts, and going off jumps is fun, but when the game teeters on simulation and arcade style racing, none of it feels any good. Leveling up is good for unlocking new vehicles and liveries but since all of the cars perform similarly, I didn’t get much out of the rewards.
Gravel is a game that confidently flaunts its personality. It’s consistent in this and I can’t fault it for that. But its gameplay and track design feel uninspiring, making the entire experience redundant and shallow. The gameplay and structure of the career mode don’t compliment Gravel’s personality in any meaningful way.
The Final Word
At this point in the current console generation, it’s difficult for any racing game to stand out in the crowd. But Gravel feels generic when it really shouldn’t. The redundant structure of the career mode is only made worse by its uninspiring gameplay and track design. It has personality, but Gravel doesn’t round out the experience with its flat racing.
– MonsterVine Rating: 2.5 out of 5 – Mediocre
