Upon loading up Offroad Legends, we were expecting a Trials type experience, and this looked like the same insane jump and bump gameplay, only with monster trucks instead of motor bikes. Well it's not really like that at all, but forging its own path, this racer definitely has some unique things to offer, such as jumping lava in a hippie kombi van.

One of the first things to get used to is that going full bolt will have disastrous effects. Your truck has a damage percentage meter, and slamming back to Earth after launching off a ramp will either result in your suspension having an out-of-body experience, or if you're really unlucky, you'll lose your front or rear wheels and will have to restart the level. Now there are two ways to counter-act this. One is to take things slow and safe, and while this will get you to the end of the level, it won't have you beating the level time, and most importantly, it's not really that fun. The other way around this issue is the customization of your truck. For both the front and rear axle, you can adjust via slider bar the radius and length of the tires, their stiffness, and the amount of damping. Aside from giving you better traction and control depending on the level, you can use these slider bars to play around and make some really unhelpful but amusing configurations to your monster truck.

All this side scrolling hill driving mayhem is controlled via an accelerate and brake pedal in the bottom left corner, and a couple of arrows to adjust leaning, especially when airborne. This is most important to understand in the lava jump mini-game, where your leaning has an effect on how far you can travel (and also on whether or not you land properly).

So while not being exactly what we thought it was, Offroad Legends is a decent enough side scrolling racer. The customization options and lava jump  make for fun times, but it does seem to be missing that certain spark that makes games like this hard to put down. Worth a look if you've ever wanted to test the suspension on a monster truck.