Desert Race Adventures

If you were a kid in the 1980s, then chances are you learned the harsh realities of 19th century cross-country travel through the educational game The Oregon Trail. This was the game that taught you how to hunt, how to conserve your supplies and, most importantly, how to get over a loved one dying of dysentery. In a lot of ways, Desert Race Adventures feels like a racing game spin on Broderbund’s classic franchise. It’s a rally racer that is a lot more interested in resource management than driving well, making this one of the most unique games I’ve played all year. But is that enough to get us over the finish line or does this game run out of gas? That’s what we’re about to find out when I review Desert Race Adventures by Firedrake Games.

The first thing you need to know is that, despite what the name suggests, Desert Race Adventures is not a racing game. You never directly control the rally car and the road you’re on doesn’t have any corners. What we have here is a strategy game with a real emphasis on resource management. It’s a game all about keeping your car and racers healthy and able to complete what turns out to be a 4,000-mile race from Belgium to Togo.

What you need to keep track of is the fuel, your food and the spare car parts you’ll need to use for repairs. While you’re dealing with that, the driver and co-pilot will slowly lose health and gain fatigue, making them more prone to get lost and wreck the car. The good news is that we can pack three extra items for each leg of the journey, so you’ll probably want to grab more fuel, an extra box of snacks and maybe even a few car parts. As long as you rest up from time-to-time, you should be able to make it to such exotic locations as Marrakesh, Dakhla and Tamale, all leading to the finish line in Lomé.

While completing the lengthy race isn’t all that tough, the goal is to make it to Togo as quickly as possible. If you can conserve on replenishing the extra items and hit a few shortcuts, you’ll earn a high score and see your name on the leaderboard. The developers are hoping that you’ll get addicted to trying to beat your high scores, as that’s basically all there is to do in Desert Race Adventures.

Thankfully, each race is a little different. Much like The Oregon Trail, you’ll be racing along and then something unexpected will happen. You’ll get into a fiery crash, bandits will hold you up at gunpoint, you’ll have engine troubles, the extreme heat will cause havoc and, yes, you’ll occasionally get lost. The fun of this game is figuring out how to solve these figurative (and literal) bumps in the road. These obstacles will start out easy to manage early on, but watch out, because the problems will start to pile up the closer you get to the finish line.

There are also a number of events that will force you to make a choice. For example, you’ll occasionally run into a fellow racer who is having car problems. You can drive right past them to make sure you get finish the race as fast as possible, or you can pull over and help them out, which will usually result in gaining more resources and some bonus points that will added to your score at the end of the game. How you tackle these types of scenarios is up to you.

The problem with Desert Race Adventures is that there aren’t enough different types of obstacles and events, so while the order may be different, a lot of the races start to feel the same. Unfortunately, that kind of repetition is front-and-center throughout this entire game. Even the race is the same every time you play, so get ready to see the same set of backgrounds and pitstops every time you play. That’s a shame, because there’s no reason why the levels and locations can’t be random, adding an extra layer of variety to the mix.

I also found myself losing interest after only a few full races. There’s nothing for the player to unlock or earn, so the only incentive to play the game again is to beat your high score (or compete against the online leaderboard). You can’t even change the color of style of your vehicle, so every playthrough looks almost identical. Sure, this type of customization is merely cosmetic and won’t impact the gameplay, but it highlights how shallow the rest of the game feels.

That’s not to say that the game doesn’t give you any way to change-up each play, as you’ll be able to select between three different drivers and co-pilots, each with their own individual pros and cons -- one might get fatigued less but will eat more food and so on so forth. You’ll also have a choice of what to do at each checkpoint, including resting, repairing the car or buying more gear.

Speaking of which, there are five pieces of gear to select from, including more food, an extra tire, spare gas, parts for repairs and road kit. The problem with this gear is that three of them are vital to the journey, while the other two are a nice luxury, but nowhere near as helpful. And since your car can only hold up to three items at any given time, you’re almost always going to want to pack the essentials, giving you very little incentive to experiment with the extra wheel or road kit. Perhaps this is the kind of issue that could have been addressed if we could choose between different vehicles. Maybe there’s one car that has a really big gas tank, but is prone to lose their tires.

As you can tell by the fact that I’m right back to complaining about the lack of content, the shallowness is a real problem with Desert Race Adventures. It’s not that I didn’t have fun trying to overcome adversity and shave a few days off of my time, but the sameness of every run started to get to me after only a few playthroughs. What this game needs is a major injection of new obstacles and events to deal with, different locations to visit, and more ways to customize each playthrough. Without that, I’m having a hard time recommending Desert Race Adventures.