Nail'd Hands-On - High Jumps and Boost at E3

E3 continues, as does GameSpot's coverage of all its games, including Nail'd, the upcoming arcade-style off-road racing game. This over-the-top racer lets you race either as an ATV or as a motocross rider, racing to win on one of 14 different courses.

Who's Making It: The game is developed by Polish studio Techland using the Krome 4 engine--an evolved version of the tech used to power last year's Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood.

What It Looks Like: Before the race starts, Nail'd looks like a fairly realistic racer that lets you customize the appearance of your rider avatar as well as your vehicle. But once the race starts, the game quickly gets crazy and flings you across huge chasms that send you way, way, way up in the air.

What You Do: This is an off-road racing game that lets you build your "boost" meter either by perfectly "nailing" a jump (coming down off some hangtime more or less parallel to the ground) or by "nailing" one of your opponents by knocking him off the road. When you've built up some boost meter, you can use it at any time, and it temporarily gives you a huge speed boost for as long as you keep that button pressed.

Techland has designed each track to make sure you won't drive for long without encountering either a huge jump or a tight turn, or both, which is why the developer opted to not put aerial tricks in the game. Instead, while you're getting hangtime, you can use your left thumbstick to steer in midair to maneuver yourself away from any cliff faces you happen to be flying straight toward. Should you miss your jump or get whacked by another player, you'll have to respawn a ways back up the track and most likely lose your position in the race.

How It Plays: There appear to be only three buttons that are really relevant to the game--throttle, brake, and boost--and realistically, of those three, only two matter in any given game (throttle and boost). The game lets you play one-off races on different tracks that will support up to 12 players at once. It will also support up to 12 players in multiplayer.

Currently, the game seems to handle just fine for an arcade racer, and with a little practice, we were able to tear through a normal track without letting go of the throttle.

What They Say: This is a game that throws realistic simulation out of the window for arcade-style action.

What We Say: Sure, that's fair. The game is planned for release later this year on the Xbox 360 and PS3.