Off the Tracks

Genre: First-Person Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Off the Tracks is a First-Person Platformer released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2023. In this game, players find themselves jumping from the top of one train car to the next as dozens of the vehicles barrel forward, trying not only to reach each level’s exit as quickly as possible, but also trying to do so without touching the ground. And if you find yourself responding to that description by saying, “huh, that sounds a lot like Clustertruck but with train cars instead of trucks”, congratulations, you win a cookie.

The similarity is clearly not accidental, and in some levels it’s outright blatant, with the game clearly taking level ideas directly from Clustertruck. Off the Tracks is unquestionably a copycat game, but as my regular readers will know, I often say that there’s not necessarily anything wrong with being a copycat, as long as you’re a good copycat. So naturally, the question then becomes if Off the Tracks is good?

Well, the presentation certainly isn’t doing this game any favors. While Clustertruck already looked like something slapped together in a physics engine, Off the Tracks is even more so, with simple and at times outright primitive 3D environments and vehicles, with the physics engine itself being janky and frequently unpredictable. I suppose as a silver lining, I don’t think this game has the same problems with aliasing and poor framerates that the Nintendo Switch version of Clustertruck has, but there’s also clearly far less going on under the hood here.

The rest of the presentation is similarly lacking. There’s no soundtrack whatsoever here, and the only sound you’ll be hearing is the constant clacking of trains on rails (or whatever else they’re rolling over). Even the game’s menu interface is ugly and looks poorly thrown-together.

However, when you look past the terrible presentation and focus on the gameplay, Off the Tracks is almost on par with Clustertruck. Almost. The jumping physics take some getting used to, but the game still features the same sort of silly yet compelling fast-paced gameplay that was in Clustertruck. Surprisingly, this game mostly manages to be a pretty good knockoff.

The only problems (apart from the presentation) are due to lacking options and content. In regards to the former, this game could desperately use an option to remap buttons, as having the jump button on the B button instead of R or ZR seems like a terrible miscalculation to me when you really want to have both thumbs on the two analog sticks. And as for the latter, this game contains only 30 levels compared to Clustertruck’s 90. However, the other side of that argument is that Off the Tracks costs less than one-third the price of Clustertruck.

On balance, Clustertruck is still by far the better game, but when you adjust for the difference in price, Off the Tracks starts to seem far more reasonable. It’s still hard for me to tell people to get Off the Tracks when Clustertruck exists, but if you’re looking for the same sort of game at a lower price, and don’t mind this game’s issues, I think you’ll find it to be a sufficient low-cost substitute.

tl;dr – Off the Tracks is a First-Person Platformer where players jump from one train car to the next and avoid touching the ground. In other words, this is basically a low-rent version of Clustertruck but with train cars instead of trucks. The game’s presentation is primitive, the lack of button remapping is a serious problem, and the limited amount of content all make this inferior to the more well-known game it’s clearly based on. However, for under $5, this is a decent discount alternative.

Grade: C+

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