That's good, because despite the rather breakneck pace that the MX seemed to hit with, each of the games was, if nothing else, loaded with stuff to do. Some of that stuff may have been fairly similar to the games in the past (and in truth this one doesn't feels so completely new as to be an alien experience), but there was no doubting that when you plunked down your cash for things that the games were going to pay dividends in terms of actual content offerings.

That's just as true with Reflex -- at least from what we could see in our limited play time -- but it seemed like Rainbow's art team took some of the complaints of the experience not quite delivering on the same level of scale and visual oomph in the last few games to heart. The very first thing we were treated to when selecting an MX event (y'know, beyond the carefully sculpted 30 second sign girls) was the sheer magnitude of it all. Sure, the dramatic camera swoops and narration by the one and only David "Throat Full O' Gravel / We'll Sell You the Seat But You'll Only Need the Edge / Testoserone Growl" Lee -- who also provides all the in-game tutorial narration) helped, but the second the camera pulled down behind the riders and the sheer expansiveness of the stadium, flashbulbs popping everywhere and the roar of the crowd all hit, it finally felt like a proper nighttime event.

It wasn't just the scale of it, either. Rider details, bike intricacies, ambience and an odd sort of gritty shininess (if that even makes sense) all combined to form this sort of nexus of digital adrenaline that got us seriously pumped for the actual race. The gate dropped, we punched the throttle... and promptly ate it on the first corner. Suffice it to say, even those who have played all of Rainbows games in the past are going to have to do a bit of re-learning of the core mechanics.

It's not that MX vs. ATV Reflex has completely abandoned the "rhythm racing" mantra that Rainbow first coined with their off-roaders -- in fact it's quite the opposite, but now instead of simply clutch popping and pre-loading shocks, there's a constant management of both the vehicle and the rider. We'll be completely honest: in the few hours we had to wrestle with the game, we weren't ever able to feel fully in control -- which is good because it was precisely the same feeling we got when hopping on a real bike and learned to ride it just a bit earlier. The feeling of having to pitch and control throttle, weight and vehicle at the same time is... daunting to say the least.

Here's the thing, though: when it all clicks, it does so magnificently. Putting aside all the updates to the game's look (ground textures, track sizes, environmental complexity, density of vegetation, it's all there -- with a bit of tearing we hope is cleared up by the final product), the real change this time around is in how the player interacts with the vehicle and how the pair in turn reacts to constantly changing terrain.

Case in point, pre-loading. The old way, vets of the series will remember, was to pitch an analog stick back to compress the springs, then forward at the lip of a jump to give a jump a kick. Now, you simply lean your rider back and let the game's new physics handle the rest (pushing forward, as we did when we first started, would just send us sloooooowly flipping onto our head, which made for some nice demonstrations of the ragdoll bails, but wasn't so good for maintaining momentum). If that sounds too simple, though, consider the reverse; leaning forward while going off a jump causes the front springs to deaden the impact, resulting in less bounce. Now, every jump becomes more about managing momentum and how the rider is using it to balance out springs than a constant back/forward or forward/back flick.