Ocean Drive Challenge

Ocean Drive Challenge – Demo Impressions

As a kid growing up in the “80′s” i immediately caught the Miami Vice”esque” upon starting Ocean Drive Challenge. Oh wait there’s more. Ocean Drive Challenge is a driving game that catapulted me back into the arcades where i use to play a game called Outrun. Trust me, all compliments coming from me. Nostalgia runs rampant with this Xbox Live Indie Game (XBLIG). Ocean Drive Challenge was developed and published by need1D and released January 23, 2012 via Xbox live Live Indie Games Marketplace for 80 MSP.

The main menus screen had Start Game, High Scores, Create, How To Play, Buy Game and Exit. Basically you have all the info you need and its easily navigable. The controls (Xbox 360 gamepad): LS-steer, LB-brake, RB-accelerate, A-switch gears. Simple controls and they partially didn’t matter a whole lot since the game seemed to place you on invisible rails anyways. You can steer and avoid on-coming traffic etc. Its just how the game is built, it seems like you driving on invisible rails the entire time.

You can choose between three different drivers in the full game of Ocean Challenge Drive. The demo lets you choose one driver and that is J.J. Barrom and his RD100D. Cynthia drives a Barracuda and Mr Gatlin who is a dead ringer for Gordon Gekko  drives a Classic GT. Each car has its own statistics for braking, acceleration and top speed. Each character must talk to themselves differently during races also. When you start the race you can choose automatic or manual. You can also “Hide Driver Comments”. I left the comments on since i’m nosey. You can also choose if and what music you want to play. You can shuffle the music if you so choose.

Gameplay is ok. Like i said it feels like your on-rails driving the entire time. Its simplistic and feels old school. I did play through the trial a few times and finally got to the point where i had “30 seconds” until the demo stopped. As for the presentation its solid. The artstyle and visuals are good in my opinion. I liked the different settings and how they changed as you crossed checkpoints. Ocean Drive uses a vibrant color palette that makes the visuals pop out of the screen.

The game appears to have many settings like forest, downtown city, roads lined with ancient statues, canyons and a neon city. Its a really nice looking indie game on XBL. The music was good for what this indie game was about. There are a quite a few songs which adds to the overall quality of the game. Ocean Drive Challenge definitely has some nostalgia going on with it. Its presentation is solid for an indie game on XBL. And for just 80 msp it just might be a deal. Thanks for reading.