Overpass

In short, if you like offroad driving - especially games like Off-Road Drive, Mudrunner and Dakar 18 - this is worth a look. It's a racing game to the extent that you are racing against the clock, and you do feel the pressure of time whilst playing the game. It has the effect of making the game feel like a racing game.

Visually and performance-wise I have no complaints or issues, the game performs really well with my GTX 1060 on the higher settings. The game is made by an Indie team so you should not expect something that looks like a Codemasters or Turn10 game. That would be a silly expectation. That said, I still think it's a pretty game to look at.

The real charmer is the physics. I would describe the game as an offroad physics puzzle game, like Mudrunner meets Dakar 18. Whenever you come across a new segment of terrain, like a muddy hillcimb or collection of rocks, you have to think about how you should approach it. Sometimes it's about trial and error, other times your experience will guide the way. It's a challenging game, even on the lowest difficulty.

The physics does feel sim-like, perhaps the vehicles feel somewhat lighter in weight than I would expect, but I'm no expert of ATVs and UTVs. The physics feels realistic enough that I think and care about what I'm doing.

You have a good selection of vehicles to choose from and the game is very open as to what you use, if you prefer an ATV over a UTV you can choose the one you like for that event. There are enough vehicles to make the game varied, and for it to be worthwhile to save up and buy new ones. You can also upgrade each vehicle.

There's not much variety in the event types. However, this is very much a niche game, in the same meaning as: Mudrunner, WRC 8, Dakar 18, ... or MotoGP 18 for that matter. It's about doing one thing: traversing a track filled with obstacles in the fastest time possible. That's the core of it. That is what you buy the game for.

Your vehicles take damage and have to be repaired, so you need to be relatively careful. Being reckless can be punishing in terms of costs and time. The game offers a 1st-person view, but I preferred the 3rd-person view.

Complaints? Well, the vehicles you start with are very weak in terms of torque. In the Career mode, the game lets you race on tracks where your starting vehicles are far too weak. It's unfortunate that the game leaves certain tracks open as an option, even though you have little to no chance of being able to complete them.

You are too limited in what courses/tracks you can do at the start of the game, and you'll find yourself grinding the old ones until you can afford to buy an appropriate vehicle for the more difficult courses/tracks. Beating or even completing a track does not necessarily depend on your skills then, but on the vehicle you are using. I feel that this part of the game was not tested enough by the developers, it feels like a miss. As you get better vehicles or upgrade the ones you have, the game opens up and you have considerably more track or event options.

All in all though, I've really been enjoying my time with Overpass. It can be frustrating like any physics-driven game (Mudrunner, Trials, etc.), but also very rewarding and fun. I haven't played a game similar to it since Off-Road Drive on Xbox 360, and it's nice to play a really good one again.