Review
Played on: Xbox One X
Released: 2018
Released: 2018
Introduction
Born out of Codemasters requiring the remains of Driveclub developer Evolution Studios, Onrush is a genre within racing I rarely dabble in: vehicular combat. Sure, you can call the wipEout games I love that genre, but there the weapons are more about an aid to get first place in a race. Whereas is Onrush the whole point of the game is that the combat goes towards a specific goal other than the finish line.
With a fresh set of ideas, the newcomers to Codemasters set out to create a racer unlike any other. After a lukewarm reception in 2018, let's take a look at the game I required last year and see if it's worth your time.
Premise
Onrush is about neon coloured cars and characters driving about in some post apocalyptic styled nature environments with a heavy emphasis on weather changes. It has a distinct visual tone to it that is recognisable and has clearly influenced the far more recent Codemasters racer, Dirt 5.
The premise of Onrush is not only destroying and stopping your opponents from winning, but it's about winning as a team. Not only is it about getting the most points for your team, but it makes you about drive about in a massive crowd of cars as you do so.
Are you confused? Well you should be. Onrush forces the player to drive as a massive gang of cars battling it out. If you fall to far behind this crowd, you are fast forwarded along the track to reach it again. Within this crowd is where you do your best to earn as most points as possible through a set racing mode goal and wrecking as most opponents as you can at the same time.
Campaign is spread across various tournaments with races and cups within. usually introducing longer races and new more complex tracks to the mix.
Gameplay and features
There are various racing modes, ranging from "Overdrive" where your team has to boost as much as they can to win, boost can be earned faster with vehicle abilities. Cars have set ways to earn boost; some by driving close to enemies, others by driving close to teammates or some even have specific tasks like taking out opponents. "Countdown" is a racing mode about passing though narrowing gates to earn extra time for your team, the team with the counter that hits zero first loses.
"Lockdown", a personal favourite, is about holding the most amount of teammates within a circle as it it counts down, team with the most cars within gets the points. "Switch" is the equivalent of a weapon swap mode from a shooter game; each death swaps out you current vehicle with another one from a different class.
There's a total of eight vehicle types with various abilities to choose from, with lots of car models within to unlock. I felt like the best vehicles were the bigger and heavier once as you could hand out more damage to others cars.
Moving on to the actual gameplay, I found the choice of crash physics strange. More than being a simply physics based one, where weight, angle and momentum counts, it's about being the first to crash into someone and automatically getting a scripted kill by being first. Sure, the size of the vehicle helps somewhat, but it often is just a scripted win. Jumping on top of other cars is an annoying way of simply auto-killing cars underneath you.
Driving feels arcade styled simplistic, with no actual sense of proper feedback of the surface. When tons of stuff happens around you it gets overwhelming and disorientating, you just clutch on to your controller and hope for the best. Maybe the fairly basic driving physics is to aid this, as you won't need to worry too much about ever braking or driving precisely. It's a full throttle racer with little emphasise on driving physics, then again it doesn't really need to as it's about the team goals.
What bothered me the most was my sense of participation in these massive car battles. I felt I didn't influence the outcome in a satisfying manner. Like I was simply just driving along to something I couldn't make a difference to. Sure, I probably brought in more points than the average A.I. racers, but often my team would just win or lose without me contributing at all. It feels random and confusing, you're simply riding along with the crowd of cars and see tons of stuff happening out of your control.
I liked the premise of the cars crowded together and the alternate way of winning in each mode, rather than the simple race to first place. I just wish it felt like I participated more towards victory.
Video
While I'm not overly ecstatic about the visual craziness of the menus and characters, the actual environments are very nice. Their varying lighting of day, night and weather conditions combined with a natural look of forests, mountains and surfaces like snow and sand work very well. With their massive scale they look spectacular at times, especially when jumping high above them looking down. In hindsight it's clear to see this influenced Dirt 5 later on.
Sadly, roadside details are sped past in a motion blur, you never get up close to memorable areas within each track. Their massive width contributing little to actually interacting with them.
My XB1X version lets me choose between 4K@30fps, or the more appealing and my recommended setting: 1080p@60fps. The latter helps keep latency low and the visual experience smooth, although I would have liked to have seen a little sharper resolution. Racing games without 60fps are hopefully a dying breed. Sadly, base consoles XB1 and PS4 are restricted to the 30fps.
Appealing environmental graphics, hidden somewhat behind tons of confusing action going on and a little bland presented at times. HDR looks good in sunlit areas, but are greyed out in more shadowy and darker parts for my liking. It looks good visually overall, but never blows your mind.
Audio
There's a nice selection of pop and electronic music to accompany the style of the game, it's used well in the menus and used dynamically during races to emphasise action filled moments. The transition from menues, loading screens and into races withe music pumping helps keep momentum.
Otherwise a little crowded sounding, crashes with cars, boosts and somewhat disorientating sounds in races. It's noisy game for sure, hitting the turbo button and smashing opening loot crates comes to mind especially.
Summary
The first few hours of Onrush is messy. It's a confusing game that makes you feel as if everything is going along automatically and you have no say in the matter. However, it does slowly grow on you and you start grasping how to make a bigger difference for your team than the other racers.
Perhaps it should have had a few traditional racing events thrown in to ease players a little more into it's rather strange concept? I'm guessing the confusion and lack of actual racing turned a lot of newcomers lukewarm to the game.
It's a nice package in content and visuals, once it grows on you, but it's a classic hit and miss experience for most players I would think. One of those games that tries a little too much to go out of the way of being conventional, yet fails a little in conveying to the player a good alternative, as to how and why to play this game. Not for everyone, but if it clicks to your liking there's a solid game to be found underneath.
