Alpine Crawler Wild Review

There's nothing comparable to off road racing against a clock in a side scrolling throwback with modern pizazz. Just push down the accelerator, gauge a few maniacal hills, and don't let the clock run out.

Alpine Crawler Wild is the simplest, but sometimes the most rewarding, type of racer. Each level is a lumpy side scrolling joy-fest that has you trying to get to the end without blowing yourself up or going too slow to finish. The game uses real world physics, so when you fly over a bump at full throttle with a high speed Jeep-like vehicle, you may just end up upside down at the bottom of a revine. The goal is to skillfully use jumps to your advantage while not kamikaze diving off of cliffs only to slam face first into the other side of the canyon.

In this case, real physics doesn't necessarily mean real world damgage, as your various off road vehicles can take quite a pounding. The only real way to instantly die is to crash head first off of a fairly large cliff. If you accidentally fall on your hood and end up upside down, you'll be auto-flipped over with just a slight time deduction. All is well though in racing land, because the superhuman vehicles only add to the immense racing fun.

With great visuals, fun levels, and enough off-road vehicles to keep things fun, Alpine Crawler Wild will keep even the most hard core side scrolling racing fans entertained for quite some time. It isn't perfect, particularly in the race organization (I really have no idea how the race order works), but it is quite fun nonetheless.