Onrush (2018)

If instead of trying to create the perfect little girl, Professor Utonium tried to create the perfect video game.

The theme song would go something along the lines of:

Burnout, Juiced, MotorStorm and Destruction Derby. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect video game. But Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction-- Chemical X! Thus, Onrush was born.

Onrush makes a great first impression. It looks like a fun offroad racing game and instantly reminds of good old Motorstorm series. But the more I played the less enjoyment I got.

First of all, it's not a classic racing game. There are always two teams compete in 4 different modes: Overdrive (earning points by using nitro), Lockdown (zone capturing), Countdown (checkpoint passing) and Switch (destroying each other, it's probably the most interesting one). In the beginning it had been fun, but after few hours I almost lost all of my interest because of the flaws.

You win or lose as a part of the team and it's not always reflect your game impact. Sometimes you may wreck your car several times in a row, but your team wins the race anyway. Or it can be otherwise, which is much worse. Luckily, it's not a big deal, because game is not that hard to finish (except few challenges, but it's not necessary to beat all of them).

As I said, there is no need to finish first, and that's why all of the racers drive together as a big crowd. It seems like a nice idea, because there is always something happens around your car and you see a lot of action, but it also means that there is no big difference between vehicles. Similar to Motorstorm there are 8 types of it (2 bikes and 6 cars) and all feel the same. Sure, each car has an unique ultimate ability, but it's not so important in a career. Probably, it would be more siginficant in a multiplayer, but it's hard to tell now, because not so many people play online. One more sad detail about it: there is still "Coming soon" label on a ranked mode in a menu.

Onrush also has a level progression, in-game currency and loot boxes and all of it are absolutely useless. You can unlock only vehicle skins, character clothing and tombstones (it remains on a track after car crashes). It is unnecessary here, you just wasting your time watching level progression and opening loot boxes after every race (you can't just immediately skip it). Additionally, I'd like to point out on an annoying character dance animations after races. Is it Fortnite or some other game for little children? Plus, while you're in the menu, it is almost exclusively dubstep playing on the background. God, my ears were bleeding.

Btw, the game itself has some nice music like The Qemists, but I especially liked this song:

Overall, we have an average game. I wouldn't recommend it to someone, but if you got it for free on PS+, try it. Onrush can give you some fun for a couple of hours, but I expected something better from the creators of Motorstorm and Driveclub.