ATV OFFROAD FURY

ATV OFFROAD FURY is yet again, one of those games I wish I'd of gotten my hands on sooner.  With an overall feel of arcade mixed with simulation, you get the best of both worlds.  Flying high in the air arcade style, but at the same time, watch the shocks on the ATV react to the turf...really quite amazing.  Though the physics engine has been called less than real, I personally believe its a great physics engine, tweaked only for the funfactor.  The control you have over your ATV is really quite smooth, and again, easy to learn, hard to master.  I would highly recommend this title to the ATV lover, and hater alike. Get it!

Graphics                                        8 of 10

The graphics in ATV OFFROAD FURY are impressive to say the least.  Although there is nothing extremely complicated about the land generation in the engine, or the models in the game (save the ATVS, which are very nicely detailed), the game looks very nice.  The texturing is very smooth, well layed, and doesn't seem to be repeating.  It's all possible that the texturing on the ground is procedural;  which means that the code knows how to randomly lay out sets of ground textures, blend them, and simulate natural growth.  And this way is the best way to lay texture for large areas of natural growth.  It ends up looking very nice.  The shear size of the cross country levels are very awe inspiring...cruising from one end of the level universe to the other can take minutes.  The poly count is very high on the ground, ATV, you, and other meshes in the world.  And considering this high poly count, and what seem to be decent res textures, the game runs smooth, with unnoticable slowdown.  The game cheats well in this arena...when the game knows there is to much going on (lots of players on screen in a 2 player race) it uses an unobtrusive fog effect, or it will turn off the particle dust kick up from some of the AI ATVs.  But all these things haven't any negative effect on the gameplay at all.  The character/ATV animation in the game is well done when you're riding your bike, but as you fling off, which you will for varies reasons, you will notice that 'you', your character will act a bit stiff. This I'm guessing is do to the fact that your character's death anims are prerendered.  If they were realtime, with some form of IK (Inverse Kenetics--or spring loaded skeletal system that works with inersia and gravity, in a physics engine) you would notice a more real fall (if not too ragdolly sometimes, i.e. Tony Hawk Pro Skater).  A real crude example here would be MidNight Club's character animation;  like if you hit a pedestrian, watch how thier body moves--that's IK too.  Overall great graphics and animation makes for a visual delight.

Sound                                             7 of 10

Theres nothing like the sound of a mean A-10 Tank-Killer roaring up above as you scream through a military establishment.  And the quality is good;  from the sound of the ATV, to the 10 or more alternative tracks you will find on the soundtrack, including songs such as 'SpoonMan', which just so happens to be a sweet ass song. All the sound, be it the ATV, the ambient sound, the UI(option screens), and other such sound is of great quality.  And hey, the ATVs sound like ATVs...Sounds good to me!

GamePlay                                     9 of 10

When one talks gameplay, you hope they are talking about how well the game works with the person playing.  Is it hard to steer?  Is the flow of the game leave you less than satisfied?  Is the UI totally jacked up and confusing?  Does it keep you interested?  In ATV OFFROAD FURY, the gameplay is completely balanced.  Like many games of this genre(ATVS??) the controls are not cool, at least that's the way it seems now after playing this game.  In this title the ATVs are so easy to get a hang of, and the steering is smooth as silk.  Of course there is a little thing called 'pre-load', you must learn, which is when you pull down at the base of a jump, and fling it up at the peek of a jump, which causing the much needed air that will fully satisfy even the biggest daredevil in you all.  Pre-load is something that is real, and it utilizes your springs(shocks) to jump you higher in the air.  Now if you wimps can get your thumb off the D-pad, and utilize that left anolog stick like you should be doing, the experience will be smoother riding.  I find that the gamplay is very closely linked to the funfactor, which in this case leads to a higher funfactor, because the gameplay is silky.

FunFactor                                     9 of 10

Here is the high seller of this title.  I simply love to sit down and play this game, with myself, or even more-so with a fellow friend. Plus the fact that you can lay your own waypoints in the huge cross country levels is a great addition.  That makes for an endless replay value.

Overall                                          8 of 10

There really isn't anything bad that you can say about this game. Simple as that. Solid graphics, great, smooth gameplay, rockin soundtrack and sound, and the ability to construct your own courses lead to a full, fun, exciting title that will do really well.