Offroad Fury 4 holds its own with dirty, fast action with plenty of variety.
(-) mid-air jumping balances are difficult to pull off; freestyle events are just plain frustrating; computer opponents have the tendency to knock you off the track; a few annoying tracks in the playlist; the mini-games really aren't worth doing
ATV Offroad Fury 4 is a Playstation 2 exclusive racer that is the last installment of a series that has always been known for its viciously fast riding and breath-taking jumps. It's had that certain down-and-dirty manly appeal to it, a good level of variety and challenge, and they have sold steadily through each installment of the series. I've never played any of the previous ones in the series, but trying this game out I had a pretty good approximation of most of the other games before it. I'm a gamer who craves some quick, satisfying and exciting action, and this game definitely fits the bill.
First of all you have a story mode, where you give yourself a name and are told to try and make yourself famous in the world of dirt biking.You can customize the look of your rider, but only the helmet and parts of the safety suit can be customized of their color, and you can also choose your gender, but it barely makes a difference. As you go through story mode you complete races from different locations wide across the globe, and you earn money as you complete events as well as win the admiration of sponsors. However, your first few races your prize doesn't seem very useful, "Congratulations, you won some gloves!" Really, I get out here on this ATV and twist my neck at these aggressive and unforgiving turns, and all I win from this race is a damn pair of gloves? Umm, oh well, but the core racing is so fun and exciting that it's likely that you won't care.
Even know the game is called ATV Offroad Fury 4, you actually have a pretty broad variety of different vehicles you can choose from, depending on the particular race type. You have, first of all, the standard ATV's, where turn really well and go a immense speed. But certain bumps of the terrain can slow the ATV down, and cause you to get in a bloody wreck. This happens more often than it should, I even tried the training mode and repeatedly failed when they tried to teach me this concept. You can also ride dirt bikes, which turn faster and easier than ATV's and maintain the same speed, but they are even more vulnerable to wrecks because of their small weight. You also have buggies, which are slower at acceleration and turning but also easier to handle and keep on the road, and also trucks which are comparable to buggies. Having all this variety keeps the game interesting, and there's enough to provide answers to anyone's play style.
There are plenty of different race types to circulate a good sense of variety and keep this from being just another standard off-road racer. You have supercross, where you take a light ATV in an in-door environment and rely more on quick acceleration. There are rallycross, where you take an ATV or MX bike in the outside environment and take some twisty turns and huge bumps. There are national events where you take nearly any vehicle you want in the challenging outdoor courses reserved for the best racers. And there's freestyle, ugh, the least appealing event because you placed alone in an area to do tricks in mid air and by drifting. The trick system seems a little off, and that can lead to many, many cheap crashes and vents out in frustration. Freestyle events, on top of it all, just aren't nearly as fun and exciting as the rest of the racing. There are circuits, where you take a truck or buggy in an indoor course. There are also P2P (point to point), which in my opinion is the very best mode. Because racers are challenged against 48 opponents to go the distance, in a wide open area outside with different varying turns and bumps, leaving a lengthy and thrilling experience. The map is organized where light-weight racers follow the red-routes and heavy-weight vehicles follow the green routes for the best racing results. The key to winning is switching across each one. The point-to-point races are also done in the form of cups, which means you'll race through three different extended tracks meeting the minimum required place in order to progress to the next. And lastly there's sponsor, which can be nearly any event from one-on-one showdowns to classic races.
If you were surprised by the amount of race types and vehicles this game features, you're in for a fissure once you hear how many race tracks there are. There are more than 70, yes, 70 different race tracks and each of them are uniquely designed and a pleasure to breeze through. You don't get access to all of them from the start, but a simply cheat in the profile menu (hint..hinty hint hint...) will unlock about 90% of that huge number of tracks. And they are just very interesting to ride through, some of them are in the unbridled wilderness, some in-doors in a technically constructed track littered by Big Red advertisements, a snowy peak as well as a simple dirty midriff in the middle of nowhere. They're designed some with straight lines, some with bumps for mid-air jumps, and some are up-and-down hill. These tracks take a great deal of skill to master and are just plain fun to explore and take a joyride throughout.
The graphics in ATV Offroad Fury are great. Take notice that the PS2's visuals aren't appreciated that much anymore by anyone who owns the HD successor, but still a lot of care and effort came to produce these visuals. The riders and their rides are incredibly detailed, and they collect dirt through until the end of the race. The tracks are also given a lot of complexity, from background effects to texture. Watching the dust pick up from behind other racers was also a nice touch. The feel of speed is pretty good, it varies upon which type of vehicle you choose. The frame rate is locked on what looks like 60 frames per second, and that makes for a smooth and silk experience.
The sound fares well also. The engines are fairly distinct from the differed vehicles, but in the options menus you may want to adjust the sound down a little and the music up, because the soundtrack for Offroad Fury 4 is great. You have a mix of pop, punk and rock from the likes of Rise Against, Senses Fail, Audioslave, 30 Seconds to Mars, and other bands. I'm particular fond with the song "Cadillac Phunque" by Family Force 5, and it actually sounds like a song I intend to track down and add to my playlist sometime soon. But there were other duds in the soundtrack in my opinion as well, like the stupid "Newsflash" song by Diplo featuring Sadra, all I hear is a cheery "Ding! Ding! Ding!" and it makes me want to take a bullet through my ears! A few bad apples in an otherwise solid soundtrack brings the entire thing down. You can however browse the soundtrack and omit certain songs from coming on during gameplay, but they still come through in the menus, so the feature feels lacking. That stupid Diplo song still finds me, time to turn the sound down again. But for the most part, the soundtrack consists of 35 songs and they fit the action well. But seriously, why no country? It's an ATV racing game for crying out loud! I'm not really sure why, but you can't hear the music playing in multiplayer for some reason. Everything else runs like it's supposed to in the split screen mode, there's no slowdown or anything like that, but it's kinda weird how you can't hear the music.
The computer controlled opponents fare well for the most of the time, but they can be a little greedy. The game inserted what are known as "rival racers" that try and match your skill level, and their name icon goes from white to red if you ram them to show that you angered them, which was a nice touch. But these racers can very frequently be problematic. When you ride in ATV's they have a tendency of trying to squash you during a mid-air jump, and sometimes they even try and run you off the track. Of course the game will detect it and put you back on the track after three seconds, but its a nuisance.
Ever wanted to play ATV bowling? Well ATV Offroad Fury 4 offers a bonus of several sports-themed multiplayer games with the use of ATVs. Few of them are surprisingly fun diversions for the first time you play them, but many of the others simply aren't worth your time because they don't control properly or aren't much fun to begin with. ATV bowling is shockingly pretty fun, taking your ride to a ramp and riding over an artificial lake to get to a platform with bowling pens. Another passable one is ring of fire, which you have a modest selections of stages where you and a friend compete in split screen to ride through rings around the stage in combos without missing one. But others, like soccer and baseball, have the camera zoomed so far out and the controls are strange and oversensitive, so they're really not worthy of a visit unless you want to show a spectator how ridiculous they are.
ATV Offroad Fury 4 is without a doubt a terrific game. It shows no laziness when it comes to variety, offering many different race types and options for rides to change the experience up a bit, an outstanding number of uniquely designed tracks to explore through, a great licensed soundtrack to listen to and impressive graphics makes this one worth playing for almost anyone who enjoys some quick and dirty racing action. Consider this a worthy end to a series well done.