Insane

Don your straightjackets, 'cause Insane will drive you mad! Off road racing hits the PC courtesy of Codemasters.

Codemasters, a company known for the excellent Colin McRae Rally series of games has gone totally off road in Insane, developed by Invictus. This high-speed racer lets you tear up the dirt in a variety of arcade style games. It's good fun, but Insane comes off as a little loopy rather than full-on schizo.

There are a ton of different racing games and locations for you to drive, and that's probably Insane's biggest strength. Off Road Race is a straightforward circuit race through gates, while more esoteric games like Capture the Flag, and Destruction Zone (where you get to smash-'em-up for points) round out the selection. Jamboree has all players race for a random gate, the first one through activates another random gate, and so on--Gate Hunt has all gates active, but you've got to find them. All told, there are eight different race types, and you can pick any available environment (as well as time of day) to race in. If you get bored with the selection the game offers, you can eventually unlock a Generate option that lets you create your own race sites.

The game controls are solid with the highpoint being the number of great camera angles you can choose from. A couple of driver's seat views give you a great sense of "being there" while solid external cameras balance the selection. To compliment the controls, you can customize your vehicle's steering, tires, suspension, braking, and gear ratios. While it doesn't give you the exacting detail that a real race sim would, Insane has enough options for would-be grease monkeys.

Insane's physics model is excellent, balancing reality with fun. Collisions, spinouts, and skids feel particularly realistic, and you can easily roll your vehicle if you drive recklessly. The game automatically pops you back upright, but it will cost you precious time.

As far as the graphics are concerned, Insane keeps up a good framerate, and there are a good number of detail settings so you can customize the game to your machine's speed. The car models are varied with some nice attention to detail, and the vehicle damage is well done. There is some slowdown in places however, and a number of clipping quirks, like wheels going into the ground and smoke passing through vehicles. The soundtrack, however, has some quality techno tracks, and the engine noise is well done too. The annoying announcer however, has got to go.

Overall, Insane is a decent deal for thirty bucks. There are enough options to keep off-road enthusiasts tearing up the dirt for quite some time, and the physics and damage modeling is a nice surprise. However, Insane, never really makes you say "Wow!" It's a solid, but not exceptional racing game that won't lock you up in an asylum (as the title suggests). Still, if you yearn to go off road, Insane will get you where you want to go.

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