Off Road

Ever wanted to race those big old 4x4s? No probably not, but Ford and Land Rover obviously want to big up their brand names, and a good way to do that is to show how cool their cars are in a video game. Eighteen vehicles are at your command over desert, water and ice environments.

With $10,000 in the bank, you must first enter the showroom to choose from one of four vehicles. The rest of the cars are unlocked depending on how well you race and how much money you win. Once you've picked your Ranger, Bronco, Defender or Escape, you are given no less than five (yes, five) modes of play.

Quick Race is just that: 3 laps on a random track. Multi-Player Mode is a two player split-screen race and Tournament Mode is a series of 4 stage races (3 laps each, 12 laps in total) where you can drive in six locations. Arcade Mode is slightly more adventurous, with specific trials or missions. These range from basic time trials to collecting gold coins along your route, or passing checkpoints before the clock counts down. This is the one place you can choose your difficulty: easy, medium or hard.

The fifth (and best) mode is Career Mode, which rolls all the different challenges into one huge marathon that's split between thirty events. So there are basic races, races where you must come first because the last two cars on each lap are eliminated, and races where you can only get a certain amount of damage before being disqualified.