A mediocre game, trying to reap some success from current "extreme" racers, but with no real soul.
In this trend, off road games are starting to grow common. Ever since DiRT 2, off road racing has received some sort of makeover, making it "edgy", "cool", and other marketing fancy words. While everything was fine with DiRT 2 because of its somewhat realistic driving, and even with Pure with its tight controls and animations, nail'd falls terribly short on the game department, while overloading you with "edgyness" and attitude.
You can choose a male or female pilot. Which is already badly implemented by making it obvious the demographics this game is targeted at by having the male biker clad in a full suit while the female has tight leggings and a bikini.
Ok, moving on.
Once you have selected your biker, you can tweak the vehicle he/she will win races on (because there's no way to lose. More on that later). Mostly cosmetic, the different parts add or remove notches to bars, like acceleration and handling. There are six bars, two of them for boost. So much for upgrading. In any case, once you have "tweaked" your ride to your liking, you can start racing. Typical linear ATV or BMX off road challenges. Not much else. From time to time the special event surfaces, which can be mildly interesting, but considering there's only one in a tour of six races, it feels a bit too little.
Now, if the standard racing was good, this lack of variety wouldn't matter much. Problem is, that it isn't good. It's incredibly, mind numbingly boring. Not only is the post-processing so ridiculous that the motion blur is almost like watching a 3D movie without glasses, but also the driving is insanely easy. There are sharp turns and the like, but for some reason, your ATV (or BMX) just bounces of walls, making it possible to win races simply by pressing the forward button. That's it. Press forward to win. Some tracks are more elaborate than others making it less obvious, but there's something wrong when on the hardest difficulty setting you arrive with more than 20 seconds advantage over the second racer. It's so easy it's frustrating.
Graphics are good, all that stuff. Is not a surprise that they are, this type of games is sold through its looks. However, as a note, is incredible how spastic, repetitive, and all around bad the animations of the racers are. If you look closely, you can see them all loop the exact same animation on the start line.
So, to sum up, this is a game for people who can't stand losing. This is a game for people with no desire to face any challenge whatsoever. This is a game for people who enjoy not having to think at all when playing. A silly game for silly people.
If you still yearn for some off road racing fun, go for Pure. It's the original. If you need something stronger, DiRT 2 will make it happen. Just steer clear of nail'd.