A few months ago Milestone called us to London to try the line-up daughter of the interior passage to the unreal engine engine, which took the forms of MXGP3 and Gravel .
The first one, as we know, landed on the shelves at the end of May and managed to convince us through the tangible improvement on the physical and graphical aspects; the second instead touched on the fate of the referral, in order to give time to the project to find its own identity, which the premature presentation had failed to fully grasp. Gravel was born as an off-road arcade racing game, easy to master and able to offer the player immediate fun through the most disparate content of the game.
We make the bill
Let’s start with numbers right now: the Italian Milestone game will feature 65 trails, divided into 18 locations (16 + 2 bonus), 4 racing disciplines (Extreme, Speed Cross, Cross Country and Trophy Trucks) more than 70 vehicles divided into 9 categories and 10 game modes. Valuables of all respect, which leave a variety of ideas within a variety of activities.
The demo on the show was made up of 4 races set in four different locations: one set in an Australian cave, one in the Florida Stadium, another at the Montalegre international circuit and finally the last in an Alaska forest.
At our discretion was left to choose the time and the weather, but above all the car selection among the twelve available. In forty minutes we have been able to try different combinations that can bring the declared variety of the game to the hand.
With no particular demands on the response of physics, we have found a system of immediate controls that differentiates the different categories by exalting their peculiarities and obscuring those difficulties that would render useless in the middle of an Alaska forest. This is not so innovative, but at the same time it covers the void left by a genre that in 2017 shows fewer exponents.
A show “All Around the World”
The work on the campaign is definitely more peculiar, but we did not have the chance to try it right here at Gamescom 2017. It’s all set up in a Gravel TV TV show , consisting of a series of competitions scattered around the world, which will see us become the protagonist slowly. Winning is not the only goal, but it is also the “steal the show”, a term that will probably be made by performing particularly spectacular actions, such as derating and attempting overtaking cardiopalm. This is, however, only one of our suppositions born of unifying information on the show and scores that appeared over the car during the fast matches but still lacking a feedback within the menus.
A look at the engine
With this demo, Gravel has shown that he has made important technical progress steps even though, according to the Milestone guys, the demo was about 70% of the title development and spun on a Hypothetically high-end PC. In general, however, the flexibility of Epic’s engine makes it possible to have a discreetly captivating screen image, though still a bit rough, perhaps due to the absence of any polishing work. Let’s remember, then, the commitment to the sound front, which benefits from the new granular engine, can guarantee an excellent sound as already heard in MXGP3 and MotoGP17.
