It also completely refreshes the concept of rhythm racing, and makes it far more technical. Now, five-hump stretches of jumps can be judged and reacted to accordingly with less time. Do you take the first two and hope you can punch it enough to clear all three? Do you take two at a time and negative pre-loading to keep you from jumping too far into that upcoming hairpin? These are the sorts of decisions that can be tackled -- at least it seemed -- with a modicum of strategy and on-the-fly thinking.

But the Rider Reflex feature is more than just leaning forward and back (though those things come into play during turns and whoops sections too, something that makes Reflex feel very much akin to Rainbow's work on the absolutely fantastic Splashdown series), now, if you get jostled or land hard after a jump, a meter will pop up on the screen indicating a direction to flick the right analog stick to use your Reflex to save yourself from a bail. It's a small little thing, and introduces an almost mini-game style mechanic to all the racing, but it was definitely a nice added challenge when we were playing.

The addition of independent vehicle and rider control changes everything about the way the game is played. We found ourselves calling it the first twin-stick racer, something where you're managing both at the same time in the same way a first-person shooter would, constantly adding or canceling weight out on turns, and it really did feel like a game changer for the series in the most literal sense. We're not entirely sure how some people are going to take to it, as we weren't the only ones at the event that had trouble taking a single checkered flag, but for good or ill, MX vs. ATV Reflex is attempting something that hasn't really been done yet to this level of precision. Fitting, then, that it's coming from the folks that helped make momentum a part of every jump and corner to begin with.

While we didn't get nearly as much time with it, it should be mentioned that most of these mechanics have been incorporated into the PSP version of MX vs. ATV Reflex, albeit in a completely different style. The camera is pitched off to the side and the actual controls work on a bias, which gives them a completely different feel. Things like leaning are mapped to the shoulders (as there's obviously no second analog) and the face buttons can be used to control pre-loading or -canceling. We really only had the chance to scoot through the tutorials, but we're looking forward to spending a bit more time with things in the coming weeks.

We've still got plenty of questions and a whole lot of hands-on time to spend with Reflex, but early impressions are that the game is a direct response to some of the complaints and criticisms of the last few games. The Rider Reflex bits dovetail nicely into the way the new terrain deformation system turns subsequent laps of a race into a completely different experience, ruts and sluices carved into the course differently every time.

If Rainbow and THQ can manage to make the new systems user-friendly and deliver the same level of depth, complexity and variety to the goings-on that they have in previous games, there's no reason to think this won't be one of the most ballsy moves the Arizona studio has attempted with their off-road franchise in a long, long time. Will it pay off? That's precisely what we intend to find out when the game hits shelves in December.