Trail Out is a full-contact racing and/or demolition derby game, with several different game modes and stunt mini-games based on darts, pool, skittles or demolition.
The main protagonist is some nutter called Mihalych, who sounds Russian, and you race against an international field consisting of Frank Woods, Sonya Mass, Joe Boomer, Frau Über, Big Cheese, Yugi Than and Ivan Komrad. Zhenka is your gasmask-wearing nutjob mechanic buddy who prepares and repairs your cars, and there are various cutscenes with him, Mihalych and various others that pad the hackneyed backstory out. Except for Los Torrent, who is the spitting image of Vin Diesel, the cast of characters look and act like Batman rejects and, to be brutally honest, don't really seem necessary. Not sure if developers Good Boys tried to lip sync the characters in the cut scenes, but if they did, it wasn't with English. Trail Out's Joker is about as funny as a woke stand up comedian, and nowhere near as scary, and some of Mihalych's & Co's jokes and quips are either terrible, or get lost in translation.
Anyway–to the racing. The aim is to get to the top of the black list of 8 drivers, and win the Trail Out Cup, attracting fans as you go. You can even do a brief "live stream", YouTube, Instagram or Facebook-style, to earn a few more fans, who in turn earn you cash as they donate regularly.
There are 40+ cars in different classes, from different eras and different conditions, they're all unlicensed but range from things that closely resemble things such as a Trabant, a VW Beetle to McLaren F1, a Nissan Skyline or a Ford GT40! You can even race vehicles such as 70's F1 cars, armoured cars and semi trucks!-Actually everything from a kiddies’ pedal car to a crane… In one career race I was surprised and delighted to find myself racing a field of Batmobiles around an instantly recognisable Nurburgring GP circuit (it’s called the Nordloopring in Trail Out.) With a fully-upgraded garage you can buy and store up to 30 graded vehicles (depending on your level) before you have to sell one to make space, and can build them from the ground up at the junkyard and upgrade them to be as good as they can be. The handling of the range of vehicles varies in a mostly convincing way, but the game's gravity also seems to get rather light at times, but you forgive the game because you're having fun.
There are several race modes;
Rush (destructive races on large tracks)
Cross (Race tracks with dangerous crossroads)
Mono Class (one-make racing)
Domination (crashing into other drivers for points)
Derby (of the destruction type)
Mono Derby (one-make destruction derby)
Trail Out's racing is unashamedly a lot like the Flat Out series and a bit like Wreckfest or Gas Guzzlers with a hint of Codemasters Grid & Dirt mixed in. The tracks are varied and long (some are several minutes per lap) and they all have some short cuts to find, some of which are undoubtedly actually just there to tempt you and mess you up... Add to this levels of destructible scenery that the previously mentioned games only ever dreamed of, and you have an outrageously fun racer.
Every race leads you towards a “Boss duel”– Defeat them on their own turf in a race then a derby event with various dangers, including henchmen.
The game has a selection of views including in-car, which I highly recommend as it changes the game from action-packed to completely mental. The graphics, which while just about as good as Unreal Engine 4 can do, are yet another game that's not UR5–so they're impressive, yet still slightly disappointing. The sensation of speed and explosion effects are awesome though, and some will make you want to gasp or duck. There are some inexplicable frame rate jitters–but bizarrely after the race has ended or in cutscenes. One thing is for sure, Crytivo have wrung every last drop of performance out of Unreal Engine 4.
As previously mentioned, there's an awful lot of destructible scenery, and there's a lot of action going on trackside as well. Spectators running across the track, flocks of birds taking flight, animals on the track, structures collapsing and exploding, rivals staggering away from their wrecked cars and helicopters to distract you too. There are 40+ different tracks, from big-city (looks like San Francisco) with lots of destructible objects and scenery, demolition derby arenas and dangerous “cross” tracks with crossroads that almost ensure bone-jarring collisions! One track is obviously based on L.A. and the fact that you get to race a truck through the LA River (storm drain) just like Arnie did in Terminator 2 is just... awesome! There are quite a few secrets to find, some unlock new outfits or skins for Mihalych, and others are secret places that'll be familiar to fans of Breaking Bad, Jurassic Park and Dexter to name but a few.
One of the relatively few downers of the game is that the difficulty seems to be all over the place. The golf buggy "mono" (same make) races are incredibly easy to win, while others are rock hard. Some races are definitely impossible to win until you have the right vehicle, even though you may have a fully upgraded vehicle of the correct class. Even when you have an absolute beast of a car the AI opponents always seem capable of nipping inside you at the last corner, or just spinning you out on the last lap when you're leading. They almost always race as a pack and rarely get spread out unless you cause havoc. The game really needed a replay mode, and while online racing seems to be dying a painful death, it would have given Trail Out a better lifespan.
Dead Out is a semi-hidden zombie apocalypse-esque survival sub-game within Trail Out, and exhibits all the best and worst things about the game, while introducing something new and unexpected. Inspired by everything from vehicular combat classics like Carmageddon, Twisted Metal Black and more recently Mad Max, Death Out is something like what you'd get if Call of Duty's Zombie mode went vehicular. This mode is tough as nails, 5 bosses must be killed to win the game and they employ just about every power, magic and supernatural trick in the book. You can repair, reload and upgrade your vehicle (you start with a Mini!) and earn cash along the way. If your vehicle gets destroyed you can continue on foot with only a wicked looking axe/club for protection–unless you should kill a Zombie soldier and collect his assault rifle… Dead Out as a 2-player online co-op game would have been amazing, so it’s a bit of a shame that option is missing.
The Split-Screen mode is a nice feature, you can play with up to 4 frenemies, but you're gonna want a BIG TV. I have no idea why there's no online racing (probably because the interest in online racers has dropped off sharply and all the destruction would be impossible to sync) but it's obviously a real downer. The split screen mode is surprisingly good though, but Trail Out is really all about solo battle racing anyway.
The stunt games are a great diversion from racing, but some of the physics seem weird, particularly the Pool game. Ignore the fact that you’re hitting the balls by ejecting Mihalych through the windscreen at high velocity, because the balls just don't react how they should. I remember playing basically the same Darts game in Flat Out, and the Golf is addictive but incredibly hard, getting Mihalych’s body to fly the right distance and actually go in the holes seems impossible initially. Demolition is literally using Mihalych’s body to make a building collapse, and therefore lots of fun!
Trail Out has a raunchy licensed soundtrack, that for once, I didn't turn down, but the weak engine sounds are a real disappointment so maybe that’s why.
While it's no Forza or Gran Turismo, Trail Out supplies plenty of gameplay and a substantial lifespan for its reasonable £24.99 price tag. Good Boys (the developer) promises game updates that will provide additional content over time, so we'll definitely be keeping Trail Out installed to see what they come up with, and will definitely dip into the occasional game of the incredibly addictive Dead Out…
Many thanks to Crytivo for the review code.