Extreme Off Road Cars 3 Cargo — Play Free Online

Extreme Off Road Cars 3 Cargo is a driving game about getting a vehicle, and whatever it is hauling, across rough ground without wrecking either. It comes from Brain Software, the studio behind the Extreme Off-Road Cars line, and it belongs to the physics-driving family where the terrain does as much of the work as the engine does.

A session is slow and deliberate compared with most of the games around it. You are not racing a clock down a smooth track. You are feeling out slopes, ruts and bumps, working out how much throttle a climb needs, and trying not to flip. The "cargo" in the title is the twist: the point is to deliver the load, so careless driving costs you more than a lost minute.

On Doodle Jump's site, most pages are about quick reflexes and one-more-try loops. This one suits the opposite mood: a few calm minutes of steering and balance, with no need to hurry.

How to play

Drive with the arrow keys or WASD. The page lists the mouse for aiming and selecting, which in practice means menus and level choice, and on a phone you tap and swipe instead of using a keyboard. Pick a level, load up and head for the drop-off point.

Think of each run as a series of small decisions. Ease onto a slope, hold a steady speed across uneven ground, and lift off the throttle before a drop so the car lands on its wheels rather than its nose.

Tips

• Go slower than feels necessary on the first attempt at a level. Seeing where the bumps and drops are is worth more than a fast failure.
• Keep the throttle smooth on climbs. Hammering it tends to spin the wheels or tip the car backwards.
• Approach steep descents straight on, not at an angle, so the car does not roll sideways.
• If you are stuck, back up and take a different line instead of pushing harder at the same obstacle.

Similar games on Doodle Jump

If you want something with the same browser-friendly pick-up-and-play feel but a different pace, Helix Jump is a one-button descent where timing is everything, and Bouncy Basketball turns physics into a two-player sports game. Fireboy and Watergirl is the better pick for a co-operative puzzle break.

The game runs in your browser with nothing to install, so it works for short sittings on a laptop, and a keyboard gives finer steering than touch.