Desert Race Adventures Switch Review

Desert Race Adventures Switch Review
Version Reviewed: Nintendo Switch

There is a certain magic to the art of rally. From high-speed precision to expert driving, a skilful team can chase records while sliding across the dirt, carving corners with a perfectly timed Scandinavian flick. Preparation also plays a key role in chasing glory, and Desert Race Adventures tasks you with managing an endurance rally team from a more hands-off perspective. What’s It Like? Pack your supplies, maintain your vehicle, and do not take any shortcuts as we review Desert Race Adventures on Nintendo Switch.

Desert Race Adventures tasks you with managing an endurance rally team as they make their way from Brussels to Lomé in the fastest time possible. You will select a driver and co-driver, choose a loadout of three items, and do your best to reach the next checkpoint with what you have on hand. Along the way, the game presents you with decisions such as taking a shortcut, which might save valuable time or leave you hopelessly lost and heavily penalised.

Vehicle management plays a central role. You are responsible for monitoring engine wear, steering, and tire condition, while also keeping an eye on the fatigue and health of your drivers. At each checkpoint, you can choose to rest, refuel, or adjust your loadout before pushing onward. The experience is clearly inspired by the Paris to Dakar rally, and as you move through new regions, a tour guidebook occasionally pops up to provide background on the areas you are travelling through.

While all of this sounds deeply strategic on paper, the gameplay quickly boils down to adjusting sliders and rolling the dice. As driver fatigue increases, so do the chances of negative events impacting your journey, but even with a fully rested team, the experience often turns into a string of unfortunate events. Only a small handful of the available items feel genuinely useful, and despite occasionally being offered a lower risk option, you will still lose supplies and progress to events that sit entirely outside your control.

That is where the main issue with Desert Race Adventures lies. After one or two runs, you have effectively seen everything the game has to offer in under thirty minutes, with only a leaderboard left to motivate the most competitive rally managers, there just doesn’t seem to be a lot of tread on the tires. Some additional depth could have gone a long way here. A roguelike style progression system, character levelling, or vehicle upgrades that better counter negative events might have added some mileage to the longevity. After completing my successful run on the third attempt, I found very little reason to return.

Graphically, Desert Race Adventures looks very appealing with its bright and colourful pixel art style. The car and its looping animation do a serviceable job of showing the rally in action, and as you reach each checkpoint, the background changes to keep the journey visually engaging. Event cards that appear throughout the race also add some visual variety.

Overall, the game feels like a classic throwback to the DOS games of old, and that is a very good thing. While playing, I kept reminiscing about a game I had called Lombard Rally, which I played over and over again. That sense of nostalgia hooked me, even if only briefly. Thanks to the simplicity of the graphics engine, Desert Race Adventures runs flawlessly on the Switch, offering a performance that is far smoother than the bumpy rally roads your team must navigate.

For rally managers concerned with accessibility, there are no options to speak of, so I always recommend doing some research to determine if Desert Race Adventures suits your needs. At just under $10 AUD, it offers decent value, particularly if you are chasing leaderboard glory, where a bit of extra longevity can be found.

For everyone else, Desert Race Adventures feels like a very niche title aimed at the most hardcore rally fans. With frustrating events that often come down to chance, no progression outside of a leaderboard, and shallow gameplay, it ultimately falls just short of the finish line.

So, What’s it Like? Desert Race Adventures is like an old school DOS game, with management elements.

In the interest of full disclosure, a review copy was provided by the publisher, but this doesn’t influence my score.

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