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Platform: Xbox Genre: Racing Publisher: Acclaim Developer: Climax Studios ESRB: E (Everyone) Released: Q1 2003 Support AE! Buy Games Here:
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ATV: Quad Power Racing 2Score: 8.0 / 10 |
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Pros: - Great visuals
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Cons: - Thumping
soundtrack too repetitive
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Related Links: Review: ATV: Quad Power Racing 2 (Playstation 2) Review: ATV: Quad Power Racing 2 (Gamecube) Review: ATV Off-Road Fury 2 (Playstation 2)
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"...ATV: Quad Power Racing has a bunch of goodies in its deep treads."
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To be sure, there's a ton of racing games available on the Xbox. Off-road, rally car, arcade-style, simulation, futuristic racers are all revved up and motoring on the Xbox. Missing from the racing ranks however, has been an ATV racing title. But ATV: Quad Power Racing 2 (QPR2) has finally filled that racing niche.
QPR2 is a
down-and-dirty all-terrain vehicle racer incorporating a good racing
challenge with some questionable content that tries to get extreme in a
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (THPS) kind of way. Yes, there are real racers
like Dana Creech, Tim Farr, and Kory Ellis, but quite honestly, if
you're like me, I've never heard of these people and their inclusion in
QPR2 makes no difference to me at all, the total opposite of how I feel
about the real skaters (with a million times more recognition level)
shredding it up in THPS. Some people may like that touch of realism, but
most won't care and instead will be more interested in QPR2 if it's any
good as a racing game.
Despite that, QPR2 has a bunch of goodies in its deep treads. To start, the game looks great, with polished graphics all around. The drivers, bikes, and track environments all are rendered with a quality touch. QPR2's tracks are smartly laid out with plenty of varied racing areas that include mud-covered swamplands, desert dunes, and snowcapped mountains. Plenty of hill jumping, power-sliding, and plain old speed will be required to get through QPR2's entertaining racing levels. You'll have only a few standard ATVs available when you first start playing, but by winning races you can open up more powerful ATVs, which really are necessary as you get deeper into the recesses of QPR2, considering that QPR2 packs a powerful challenge from the A.I.-controlled racers in Career mode. Now, I'm all for squaring off against tough competition. It's not any fun when it's easy to win all the time. Through all of QPR2's modes, including the four-player multiplayer races, you'll have some sweaty-palm inducing competition. But QPR2 goes way overboard in the Challenge mode. In Challenge mode, the goal is to complete obstacle-filled courses within a certain time limit. There are two types of challenges: ground challenges, which are hard but eventually manageable, and tower challenges. Let me tell you something about these damned tower challenges. There have been very few game experiences for me in my 23 years of gaming that have been as downright impossible and utterly frustrating as QPR2's tower challenges.
I'd like to know
who the sick puppy was that came up with these courses. They require
some unbelievably difficult driving up large towers of stacked platforms
and cylinders. Not only do you have to go up, up, and even further up
these dizzying heights, many of the platforms and cylinders and just big
enough for your ATV to fit on. Even the slightest miscalculation on
braking and turning on this psychotic obstacle arena, and you're going
for a plunge into the surrounding pool many, many, many feet below.
After about 100 tries I had just barely got the hang of the first tower
challenge before I humbly surrendered to the fruitless endeavor of
completing any of the tower challenges. (May 18, 2003) Search for Related Topics: ...More Racing Game Reviews... |
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