A dramatic increase in rain fall has raised water level in the crater, isolating the inner islet and threatening to submerge it! Hey! Isn't that what's happening on a global scale? Except this time, we are all castaways!
Mostly dirt roads & trails with minor off-road shortcuts
SUV
Each Difficulty ... +1 Star, + 1850 FUEL
Any Difficulty ... Bronze and Dragon Tattoo, Challenges Doppler
The "Swamp" is actually just lots of dirt-roads & pine trees. The biggest annoyance in this race is your competitors. A few will run really stupid while a couple will chew through the course leaving everyone behind. The idiots can get in your way or cause bottlenecks at the checkpoints, making it very frustrating at times. If you can get past them early, then you can hopefully catch up to the bozo or two that's trying to take a comfortable lead. If you're behind the bozo in the lead, then you can follow him on a few good short-cuts. You'll need them, because on Legendary these folks get fierce. You'll need more than the King Arthur or Knightmare to handle this on Legendary.
Big Cauldron Rush
Checkpoint Race
Dirt & Asphalt with off-road shortcuts
Motorcycle
Each Difficulty ... +1 Star, +1280 FUEL
Any Difficulty ... Classic Paintball Mask, Vista Points Doppler
Pretty straight-forward bike race. You'll grind your teeth in frustration on some steep slope switch backs and idiot riders getting in your way. If you can blow past them, then you should be able to maintain a decent lead. While you can take a few direct short-cuts mid-race, at the very end you need to cut over to the asphalt instead of bee-lining to the Finish. Otherwise you'll think you have an easy win just to see all the competitors fly by you on the street right at the end. (This is especially true on Legendary. The Shuriken can beat Legendary, but it can get tight.)
Lake Maze
Circuit (3 laps)
Mostly dirt road
ATV
Each Difficulty ... +1 Star, +1450 FUEL
Any Difficulty ... Motorbike Pants, Liveries Doppler
A well-ridden Deathwing will make short work of this one, even on Legendary. There's a lot of sharp turns on this one, so an ATV with good dirt-road drifting helps. The straight-aways tend to have you hitting unavoidable ramps, so you'll lose speed on them. There's an obvious short-cut once you make a right turn and head under the wooden bridge. You can cut to the right between some rocks while the competitors round the other way. Do this 3 times, and the race is basically yours. The area with the wooden buildings is tight, and you may want to run that a couple of times in free ride mode to get comfortable with it.
Take a road SUV that handles like a pregnant cow, and toss it into a speed race. What could go wrong? The Devastator's handling will have you all over the road (or flying off it) if you're not careful. Everything about the Devastator is generally sluggish: acceleration, turning, handling. It may handle a little better if you tap-tap-turn it instead of holding down the turn keys. Holding the turn keys seems to activate a delayed turn response that ends up over-turning. If you can't make it the legit way, then you have plenty of time to hoof it up the mountain off-road. Simply do a u-turn from the start, and head the opposite direction down the street. You'll pass one stream on your left and come to a V-shaped set of streams in an asphalt curve. Pop up onto the left stream, and follow it up the mountain. While you can shift in between the stream bed and the grass, generally the stream bed gives you a steady 30mph while the grass ranges any where from 20-40mph. It'll take a good minute or so to mountain goat up the hill. You'll need to climb the steep slope to get back on the asphalt. Looks steep, but you can make it. Once back on the road (having shaved most of the course off), just head to the finish. You'll probably finish with 30 seconds to spare... and put this miserable challenge behind you.
Basically just follow the chopper, which will require a lot of off-roading. You may be able to pick up a few Fuel Barrels along the way, but don't go out of your way. The chopper will slow down pretty fast on this one, giving you plenty of time to head to the Finish. Really a pretty easy race.
Seek-n-Destroy
Opponents follow the blue course. Short-cutting to the dirt trail outlet catches them easy.
You're chasing two muscle cars, so you'll need to leverage your Avenger's off-road capability to your advantage. After heading down the street a bit your opponents will make a sharp right onto a dirt road then fork left onto a dirt trail after a bit, essentially heading back to the asphalt road they went off of. If you keep following them down the asphalt, they'll take another right on to a dirt road. If at any time your opponents get too far ahead, you'll basically need to restart, because your buggy isn't fast enough to catch the muscle cars in a flat-out race. So, how do you beat these assholes? The easiest way is to follow them down the street. When they u-turn onto the dirt road (blue course in pic) cut through some fields to shave a bit of distance off the asphalt road and just get to the outlet of that dirt trail. Let the opponents plow into you.
Let's take the biggest machines in the game, and toss them into off-road, heavy woodland! Yeah, that sounds like a great idea! Um... no. This is one of the most annoying races. The very start has you fighting your way through tight woods with idiot competitors ramming into them and bottle-necking. Early short-cuts involve cutting through more trees. The Lucha Libre sucks for all of this, because it's acceleration is slow, it's turning is sluggish, and monster trucks in general have a high camera angle (if viewing from max overhead). This means you're blinded by the branches in your face, and can't see the trees coming up sometimes. If you head leftwards down to the street you'll be able to avoid most of the boneheads in the woods. Follow the course for the most part, otherwise you'll end up on horrible dirt trails or (worse) out in the woods. Each checkpoint is buried in more woods, so you'll need to gently navigate that horrendous affair. Thankfully, the last leg of this disaster is pretty much on an open asphalt road that switches to a dirt road after a bit. You can cut through some fields to get to the finish. While annoying, you can win this pretty easy, since the competitors will get hung up on a lot of trees. I guess one of the developers thought this would be an interesting "challenge", but it's just a stupid, "fish out of water", handicapping race that preys on the vehicles' worst terrain type.
Blitz's can be royally annoying, but this is a fun little one where your Mudblaster shines. There's a couple of switch backs going down that you can save a bit of time on rolling towards your next checkpoint gently instead of curving all the way around the end of the switchback. After checkpoint 11, you can head towards checkpoint 12 then angle to your left and come back right to ramp up the steep incline and basically be right at checkpoint 12, saving a little more time. Staying on the trails will get you ~75mph vs. the ~65mph you get off-roading, so you have to decide whether to bee-line off-road or not. For the most part, it's a pretty easy race. Only way to really lose would be drifting off a trail edge early on.
Mostly asphalt with a dirt trail segment thrown in
This is an unforgiving run due to a tight time limit. You may think you're doing pretty good, but towards the end you'll lose as you realize you're needing another 5-10 seconds. You'll need to squeeze every drop of performance out of your Enforcer to make it. Most turns & curves can get handled without drifting. Instead, just tap-tap-tap'ing slightly and rounding into the outer lane before gently cutting back to smooth out the curves will let you maintain top speed. On major turns (and there's a couple), slam on the brakes to 50mph, so you can turn sharply and get back up to speed instead of drifting out of control. If you start to drift too much, lay off the gas; holding it down will just prolong the drift and possibly send you into the weeds. Most of the course is asphalt, but there's an annoying dirt trail early on. You'll need to try to stay on it as much as possible, since you'll slow down with too much off-road time. (Dirt trails are annoying, because you need to be on them perfectly to maintain a decent speed.) After the dirt trail the rest is asphalt, so just pedal to the metal and do your best. There's a curve or two you'll need to drift, but mostly it's just solid driving. You may be clenching your teeth towards the finish line.
Dirt roads / trails, off-road short-cuts, some asphalt
You have to pick-n-choose your short-cuts carefully on this one, because some roads follow a cliff that you won't notice until you're flying off it in a bee-line to the next check-point. Generally just follow the route to the first checkpoint. After that you get a couple of shortcuts through the weeds. Most are pretty noticeable. This will put you ahead of the pack. However, you'll need to slip down some hills and cut a few more fields to keep the lead, because the competition likes to run fast on this race. When you get past the last checkpoint follow your GPS onto the asphalt road. This will maintain a good speed and prevent competitors from flying by you (which they will if you bee-line through the woods to the Finish).
Your Twin Freaks drifts like an ATV, so handle accordingly. Starting out it won't seem possible to win as competitors fly by and there's just straight roads to checkpoints. But, just keep following the competition. Eventually you'll see them dive off the dirt road edge. They're heading down towards a dirt trail that cuts through the woods. Once you hit this point the short-cutting starts. You can cut through some woods to another checkpoint, and then you'll hit a dirt road that goes right as a switchback into a ravine. If you gently roll your Twin Freaks over the edge you'll glide down to the bottom and the checkpoint ensuring a nice lead over the rest. Only next issue is there's a very tight turn around a hill to ramp up onto a dirt trail. The Twin Freaks has surprisingly good hill climbing ability (probably because it handles like an ATV), so slow down before you get there (so you won't over-drift), make the turn, and then head up. From there it's just a matter of making checkpoints to the finish then doing it all over one more time. Even if you get sloppy on that tight turn or biff it going down the steep switchback slope you should have enough of a lead to still win the race with ease.
This is a long one that runs half way around the rim of Crater Lake / Big Cauldron, so set a good 15 minutes of life aside. You start out in some woods, and the competitors like to get stuck on them. So, veer around outside them, and head towards the asphalt road as soon as you can. This Endurance race is a tad neutered in that most of the course is along asphalt roads that are boring for off-road buggies. But, you get your best speeds, and most every short-cut in this race will involve diving through thick woods. So, take your pick. There's enough short-cuts to bee-line to check-points that you'll have a harder time NOT winning the race than winning it. Checkpoints are purposefully put off-road, and some are amongst thick woods. It's annoying, but keep it around 70mph and the Fox should be able to weave through it ok. While the Fox handles good, its reliability is its weakness. Just ramping off a hill onto a road can cause damage, so you'll need to keep an eye on the damage guage to make sure you don't break your ass at an inconvenient time. Although, with all of the tree short-cuts, it's probably inevitable. So, don't fret if it happens a few times. The mapped course sends the competitors on such insane, out-of-the-way detours that towards the end of the race you probably won't even see them on your mini map. This gives you plenty of time to knock over Fuel Barrels while you leisurly decide how to get to the Finish.
General Info
Wizard Island in Crater Lake, Orgeon - Where Big Cauldron's Edge is based
Big Cauldron's Edge
Stars needed
Challenges
Vista Points
Vehicle Liveries
Doppler Trucks
Bonus Car(s)
The Swamp
