While the launch of the Sony PlayStation 2 was a massive success it had one of the dryest periods of releases afterward. There were games, lots of them in fact, but these were rushed to the market and not very good. I remember reading reviews in EGM and not feeling quite so bad that I wasn’t able to secure my own console at the time. Because of this ATV Offroad Fury turned a few heads. It was a simple arcade style racer, but it was very fun and well designed. It’s been a while since I revisited this one. I was feeling the need for some off-road speed, and decided to pop it in. Does it hold up? Is this still one of the best launch window games for the PS2? Keep reading to find out!
ATV Offroad Fury is an arcade style racing game. As such there’s no story or anything; you choose what kind of event you want to compete in, the track, your racer/vehicle, and you’re off! There are some settings you can tinker with in the garage as well, and for the most part options are plentiful here. There are a few different game modes here but I’ll get to that later. The heart of the game is focused around off-road ATV racing (as if you couldn’t get that just off the title) and it does this very well. The game is a fully 3D racer where you view the action from behind your vehicle. You’re tasked to compete in laps around a variety of different courses against four other AI (or another human) drivers. Because of the off-road nature of gameplay jumps and air time are huge factors in gameplay.
As someone who used to have a job involving driving ATVs I can say that the physics are actually pretty decent. The mechanics assume that the person you’re playing as is a professional driver. This makes elements such as leaning and grip automatic. There are no instances in which momentum alone will cause you to take a spill. This is nice because otherwise ATV Offroad Fury would be a whole lot less fun to play. Because of the nature of the vehicles there are a lot more factors to take into account while playing. First of all you can control the lean of your vehicle mid-air. You’ll need to take measures to ensure you land squarely on the ground otherwise you’ll bounce or flip over. In this sense it’s vaguely similar to Excitebike, but much more technical.
When I say technical, I mean it. You’ll have no success with ATV Offroad Fury if you approach it like any other racing game. You have to actually have some idea of how the vehicles maneuver or else you’ll be spilling left or right. Getting just the right is tough especially with the terrain. There’s quite a learning curve and you need to learn how to both hit and land these jumps. It’s easier said than done especially when contending with other racers on the track. There are mid-air collisions that can throw you off course. There’s also the ever present concern that a vehicle will land on you thus causing a huge penalty in time as you re-spawn. The AI doesn’t aim to disrupt you in this way, but it’s tough to avoid when everyone is too close to one another.
The controls are surprisingly snappy. I find many other ATV racing games to have issues with things being too floaty, but here they were just right. It actually feels like you’re racing on dirt although there isn’t much to differentiate it from the snow in the winter themed courses. The developers got the feel and handling down extremely well. It’s also very easy to nudge your ATV in different directions while in midair, and you can clearly see any direction it’s leaning into. This makes landing a lot easier than it would otherwise be. My only complaint is I wish there was a first person mode, but it’s understandable why they left it out. Without being able to see your vehicle there would be no way to tell which direction it’s leaning in.
ATV Offroad Fury also features a myriad of different game modes to choose from. You can choose training if you just want to race for an infinite number of laps against opponents and fine tune your skills. Then there’s the MAXXIS Nationals and Stadium Supercross. These are the basic race modes with the difference between them being courses available. One features outdoor tracks and the other are within stadiums. The Freestyle competition lets you drive around and get points for performing tricks. Meanwhile the Cross Country Enduro features wide open tracks for you to race long events in. The last of these is the Pro-Career mode which is exactly as it sounds; you compete across a variety of different events in the standard career setting. I absolutely love the number of modes you can choose from, and many of these can even be tackled with a second player.
Thankfully ATV Offroad Fury runs at a steady 60 frames per second. In motion it still looks really good and the engine can keep up quite well with five racers on-screen even as you hit jumps. My big problem is that the visuals are just kind of bland. It kind of comes with the territory. There aren’t a lot of interesting ways to dress up dirt to make it look pretty. The scenery is also a little drab and the developers were obviously trying to keep things as realistic as possible. Still, the barren deserts and boring forests just aren’t all that pleasant to look at. The stadiums fare even worse, but to the developer’s credit, things look like you would expect them to. The soundtrack consists almost entirely of pop/punk songs which fit but all sound the same. It’s not really my kind of music but it’s passable.
