TRAIL OUT
The most recent bundle hosted by Humble Bundle, the At-Home Arcade bundle, featured many stellar titles all for the cheapest I’ve seen in recent times. Games like Mortal Kombat 11 and River City Girls were included, with two racing games added to the highest tier, TRAIL OUT and Redout 2. This hands-on first impression isn’t sponsored by Humble Games nor is it sponsored by Good Boys or Crytivo. Instead, this was based on my highly conflicted emotions and I figured if I wrote them out, I would better understand this enigma of a racing game title.
Developed by a small team of friends who happen to be fans of FlatOut, TRAIL OUT is an obvious homage to the fan-favorite series created and originally developed by Bugbear Entertainment. Despite taking a certain favorite IP of mine and turning Ridge Racer into a weird FlatOut spinoff, Bugbear’s iconic series has since been left a smoldering husk of what the series originally stood for.
Attempting to recreate the glory days of over-the-top arcade racers has always been the goal for indie developers. Recently, games released this year, including Formula Retro Racing World Tour had done a fantastic job at developing a modern interpretation of the classic 3D arcade games I've grown up with and still play to this day. Most of the references to older titles are tongue-in-cheek, giving a little nod to a racing movie or an older racing game in a "Hey, remember this?" sort of manner.
TRAIL OUT takes that envelope and delivers it straight to the mailbox personally, unlike games like WreckFest which it's more grounded to the first FlatOut, this game bears more influence from the second game in the series which was considered the "over the top" sequel to its predecessor. FlatOut 2 featured more race types, urban environments, and an overhauled racing system that improved on the original. TRAIL OUT features larger-than-life characters, each with their personalities on and off the track, which, just like FlatOut 2, are direct and indirect references to pop culture.
One of the rivals the player faces off against, Big Cheese, is a reference to Big Smoke from Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. There's also a character based on Sonya Blade from Mortal Kombat and other coincidental likeliness to fictional and realistic cars. The latest DLC adds a "Legendary" pack of three cars based on iconic cars from video games and movies. The Toyota Supra from The Fast & Furious, BMW M5 from Need For Speed Most Wanted, and the Peugeot 406 from the French movie series, Taxi. The story plot very roughly refers to Most Wanted as the main character, Mihalych, has to ascend the "blacklist" to be the number one racer in TRAIL OUT.
The dialogue is incredibly camp and self-aware of the various inconsistencies that may happen in games like this. How is it possible that Mihalych survived a fatal car crash and decided to enter a Death Race-esque tournament? Don't ask. Eliminating each driver in a spectacular explosive fashion yet still showing up in the following cutscene as if they were just having a non-life-threatening sparring match? Don't worry about it. It became clear to me that the star of TRAIL OUT wasn't in its story telling parody but in the core gameplay itself.
On June 16th, months away from the game's first anniversary, TRAIL OUT received its first major update titled the "2.0 Update." This update greatly overhauled the handling and physics model of the game, which is how I was first introduced to the game itself. I wish I had the pre-June 16th build to play for comparison's sake, but looking at older videos on YouTube, the control scheme appeared twitchy and "glued" to the road. I've played games like Xenon Racer in which the cars seemingly glide onto the track with a certain twitchiness. Perhaps this was how the original handling model was.
Instead, TRAIL OUT felt more like a "simcade" where cars drift naturally according to the surface, drivetrain, tires, and other details. A loss of grip on a dirt path while wearing sports tires felt different than using off-road tires on asphalt, but I never felt like I lost control of my car. On certain tracks, my car would glide along turns and apexes as if I were playing GRID Legends. While the story may not be as strong, the handling here felt right at home.
There are many game modes outside of purely racing, including a "cops and robbers" mode similar to Need For Speed Hot Pursuit. Players control a police car that is armed to the teeth with weaponry that would make a tank blush. Destroying cars in a gleeful carnage also ramps up in the destruction derby modes where players can use traps against their opponents. Even certain race tracks have these traps that behave similarly to "pursuit breakers," once again, in Most Wanted. I wasn't sure where these triggers were on the track, so I would accidentally blow myself up without realizing what was going on.
Progression is tied to the number of fans a player earns per race, similar to Respect in Street Racing Syndicate. The more fans a player has, the more junker cars the player can fix and build on their own. Players can also earn fans and bonus money by interacting with fans on "mobile apps," as well as playing a bonus "Carmageddon-like" mini-game that's set in a post-apocalyptic Alternate Universe.
Overall, if you lucked out in picking up the Humble Bundle, players would get to enjoy one of 2022's sleeper hits that has seen a new lease on life thanks to June's major update. The game does occasionally go on sale and for twenty bucks, it's one of the most well put together indie racing games with content still being added. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and some of the jokes left me puzzled, but it redeems itself in its gameplay in a similar way I felt about Wanted: Dead.
TRAIL OUT is a great late Summer arcade racing game for those who want a little bit of destruction in their diet as well as a bit of self-aware humor. Rarely do games get both the "meme" centered dialogue and "underrated great gameplay" action correct, but I'm impressed that this one managed to be the exception to the norm.
TRAIL OUT is available on Steam.