ATV Offroad Fury Pro

May 9,2007 - The ATV Offroad Fury series returns to the PSP after first helping to introduce the handheld to gamers in the US in early 2005. The original Blazin’ Trails managed to do a good job in bringing the offroad racing series to the portable world despite the wonky controls and high difficulty curve that ruined the noob-friendly nature of the series. ATV Offroad Fury Pro looks to fix the controls while making the difficulty curve much more manageable—all while adding tons of races and refining the online experience. Does Pro manage to successfully fix the flaws of its blazin’ predecessor or should it just be left in the garage?

The controls and difficulty curve are the heart and soul of any racing game. Mess up the controls and/or physics and the game is unplayable, while an unbalanced game ruins the difficulty curve that’s expected of any racing game. Luckily, both of these big issues from Blazin’ Trails have been addressed in ATV Offroad Fury Pro. Pro plays just as well as the console versions of the series do, though it may be slightly off due to the analog nub of the PSP, but not enough to ruin the feel of the game. The physics are definitely more forgiving this time around as you only need to maneuver your vehicle at an angle that’s close enough for a good landing. The barriers around the tracks can be a little strange as some of them will cause you to fall off your vehicle while others will just be pushed around with no harm done. Along with this comes the reworked learning curve that is easy enough to be fun while you learn the intricacies of the controls and physics and be challenging enough so that your opponents aren’t overwhelmingly better than you are. The rubber band AI returns yet again, but it does nothing more than keep the game competitive when you may be too good for your opponents.

While the tweaks make it easy to get into the game, it’s the immense amount of content which will keep you around. From new vehicles (trucks, bikes, snowmobiles, and buggies) to new tracks (dozens of new indoor, outdoor, and fantasy tracks in a variety of climates) and the amount of race types and options that ATV Offroad Fury Pro offers, there aren’t many games on the PSP that compare with the amount of bang your bucks will get you here. The championship mode offers around a dozen race types as events with amateur and pro versions of these events, which contain a few races in different tracks to literally offer up dozens of races for just this one mode. The single-player events that are available outside of the championship mode offer a similar amount of racing action, just without any connection between the races. As for the championship mode, winning the races and events nets you money to upgrade your vehicles or buy new vehicles to race in the new races. One thing that’s easy to notice is that these vehicles aren’t going to control much differently from each other, though that’s really up to the user to take it as a negative or not—but it does mean that you aren’t likely to hate racing with one vehicle and not another.

With all this single-player content, it’s unfortunate that things go a little haywire in the online modes. Frankly, it seems that there’s a rather large bug that keeps a significant portion of the owners of the game from even reaching the online mode as connections are stopped just short of getting anything productive done. It’s really a crapshoot to tell what copy you’ve got, but the coolest online mode in the world can’t help if you can’t get to it. If you’re lucky enough to reach the online mode, you’ll find community features like message boards, polls, the ability to send feedback to the developers, set up a friends list, and even race people. If you happen to have ATV Offroad Fury 4 for the PS2, you can connect your PSP with a copy of ATV Offroad Fury Pro to trade tracks and vehicles between the two.

ATV Offroad Fury Pro manages to shine with its visuals as the environments are presented to show off what the PSP can do. The drivers and vehicles look decent as miniature stand-ins of what you’d see in the PS2 version of the game, and the animations manage to keep the game fluid enough during the fast action that Pro offers. Load times are about average for what you’d expect on the PSP.

Sound effects are where racing game can shine to help immerse players in the game, as nothing makes you want to race more than the roar of an engine. Each vehicle sounds varied enough to prevent you from hearing the exact same engine ignition for the many hours that the game will last, but they will mix together when all’s said and done. The music is nice at times, but it’s going to be drowned out by the vehicles during races while just offering a little bit of a break to hear hip hop or rock when navigating the menus between races.

While it’s not the most awesome racing game you’ve ever seen (or will see), ATV Offroad Fury Pro is a solid effort that provides a lot of content to players for that “bargain” feeling. What was wrong in the series’ first attempt on the PSP has been almost entirely fixed here, which could make Pro the game that ATV Offroad Fury fans have wanted all along. It’s not going to blow you away with it’s technical merits, but it delivers on what it needed to do and does it well enough. It’s unfortunate that the potentially innovative online mode may or may not work in your copy of the game, but retail stores offer exchange policies for a reason. Regardless of all that, off-road racing fans finally have a game to enjoy on the go which will bring a little dirt with them along the way. Just don’t buy it for the multiplayer “experience.”

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