Gravel provides a very straightforward and lean racing experience. There are no vehicle upgrades, or even visible vehicle stats for that matter. You simply pick an event and race. This is somewhat refreshing though, as it makes racing the main focus.

One thing that Gravel really nailed is the variety of locales that you’ll race at. One event will have you racing under the northern lights in Iceland, while another will have you tearing along the coastline in Namibia. This makes what would otherwise be a repetitive experience fairly engaging.

This left me very... whelmed. Not underwhelmed; it's definitely not bad at all, and has some good parts to it. Not overwhelmed, either; not much in terms of fresh new concepts is brought to the table here. Just whelmed. It's... fine.

Gravel is a pretty bland and uninspired, but competently made and content-heavy racer with lots of tracks and cars to drive with. The controls are generally responsive, the graphics are pretty nice and detailed, and the track design gets the job done. There's just nothing particularly special about the experience; no spice, no secret sauce that really makes it unique. You want an okay racing game and nothing else? Then buy Gravel, because that's all you're gonna get, damn it.

I have some other issues with it; the physics engine is a bit wonky, often times causing my car to get flung in the air from a slight incline, there were a few bugs that, while not game-breaking, were definitely annoying, and the one original mode to its name, Smash-Up, is more frustrating than fun due to its randomized nature. But other than those issues... it's fine. Perfectly adequate. You'll play it, maybe get the Platinum trophy, have an alright time, then proceed to forget everything about it a week after you're done with it.

It would probably make for a pretty good podcast game, though.

Even though this game has much to offer, like many cars (both historical and modern-day) and tracks (all terrain type), the game still doesn't give you anything special to be remembered by due to a short and bland career and bad voice acting (repetitive pre-race commentators). The game is undriveable with a steering wheel, I don't know why, but it is preferable to play it with a controller, the assists are there, the damages are there but nothing breathtaking.

All in all the best thing the game offers are the graphics (Unreal Engine 4), but apart from that it's just a short game full of content that doesn't hook you up. A good, but not great game.