Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

A few weeks ago, yours truly was invited by Deep Silver to come to Santa Monica to check out a new, unannounced title that they were going to be bringing to the PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.  I had discussed with the other writers what they might have thought that Deep Silver had hiding up their sleeve before the meeting, as I could not think of a huge property that would be making such a secret entrance.  None of us could come up with anything, and now we can say why, as the product was a new IP called nail’d.  Yeah, absorb that one for a bit with your dirty mind and think of what comes to mind, and they wipe that thought from your brain, because you are wrong.

nail’d is a new arcade styled ATV/Motocross racer set in a fictional national park that closely resembles Yosemite or Yellowstone Park.  However, the antics in Nail’d are as far removed from reality as possible to amp this title into the stratosphere.  During my meeting with Aubrey and Geoff from Southpeak, I kept referring back to Amped for a frame of reference, as the game is all about speed, insane aerial jumps and getting to the finish first, while putting some style on your performance. 

As Geoff loaded up the first track for me, we talked a bit about nail’d and the developer behind it.  First item of shock was the developer, which is Techland.  Yes, the people behind the great Call of Juarez titles are putting together this off-road title.  Better still is that it uses the exact same engine that is found in that game.  If you are unfamiliar with the title, it is a first person shooter set in the mid to late 1800’s.  It seems crazy to move a first person shooter engine into a third person racing title, but that engine is highly scalable, and did huge open expanses so well.  Even with the pre-alpha state that nail’d was in, it looked sound in the graphics department.  The environments were lush, and wide open, complete with foliage and mountain vistas.

Of course, once the racing started in nail’d, the scenery became an afterthought, because the action is fast and furious, bordering on absolute insanity.  nail’d does away with traditional laps, instead presenting the racer with point to point races.  On each track, you will have an end point to shoot for, but you will have several options to get there, as each track is filled with shortcuts and optional routes to get you to the finish line in the fastest time possible.  It seems simplistic in nature, but working your way through the courses, they are anything but simple.  Each track features twisting jumps, aerial turns, and of course, floating fire hoops.  Do floating fire hoops in a national park make any sense?  Of course, not, but who cares when you end up launching yourself off of a 1000 foot jump and end up making it through the hoop for a bonus multiplier.  This is where the Amped comparison came into play, because I immediately thought back to the crazy air you would catch in that game, and the amount of fun that was found in that title.  I can only hope that nail’d will bring the same sense of exhilaration.

While there is a full featured single player campaign to be found in nail’d, complete with unlockables and upgrades, it is only a warm up for the multiplayer component that will have you racing against 11 other racers in a goal to get to the finish line first.  Taking what has had in the single player, I was amazed at what Deep Silver has in their ambitions for multiplayer.  While racing against other players is nothing new, it is the stat system that they are building into nail’d that really puts it at the top of my list for a fun racing title.  They are looking to build in worldwide leaderboards that can be broken down into regional components.  While they did not have all the details in place, it looked like Techland and Deep Silver would love to have stats breaking down into geographical regions.  Want to see if you are the fastest racer in the great state of North Dakota?  Or maybe if you have bested everyone in Los Angeles County?  Yeah, they hope to get that detailed.  nail’d is also looking to bring competition to your friends list as well, using a Geometry Wars 2 styled system to show you how far ahead the next person is on a track in your friends list.  It is that kind of instant bragging that will keep players coming back to shave off a second on their times.

In its current state, nail’d is doing a lot right to capture both the hardcore crowd and the casual fans in a racing title that is fun to play.  The ATV/Motocross genre is not overly crowded at this point in time, and nail’d is doing enough to separate it from competition like Pure or MX vs. ATV, with its leaderboards and ridiculous acrobatics.  Currently shooting for a Q4 release date, we should have more on nail’d at E3 this year, but I would keep it on your radar for the time being as it looks to be a ton of arcade racing goodness.  Thanks again to Aubrey and Geoff from Southpeak for having us out to look at nail’d, and we can’t wait to kick up some mud in the near future.