ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin' Trails
Four-wheelin' PSP deliciousness, now in hands-on flavor!
Published: March 7, 2005
After plopping down with our own PSP at Sony's first-party event last week and zoning out on Climax Studios' portable update to the franchise they took over from Rainbow Studios, two things are very clear: 1) Blazin' Trails does indeed still work on a handheld and 2) I suck at ATV games, no matter who the developer is.
When the ATV Offroad Fury franchise was born out of the partnership between Sony and offroading development darlings Rainbow Studios, it was a match made in heaven for most. It's one of Sony's best selling series' (yes, beating out even favorites like the Jak and Ratchet games), you see, and so when THQ bought Rainbow outright, the future of the series was a bit of a question mark. Climax, best known for their Moto GP efforts, stepped up and carried the series on, plying their experience with Acclaim's ATV Quad Power Racing franchise. The transition worked for the most part, and everyone danced together gleefully while mud spattered everything in sight. It was joyous.
Enter the PSP version, largely untouched and featuring every bit of the same multi-surface offroad racing present in its bigger PS2 brother. 24+ riders on 30+ tracks mean more than a little variety, though you mileage with the game will likely go about as far as your enjoyment with the console versions.
To help thicken up the multiplayer experience, Climax has opted to piggyback on top of Sony's online network to allow for hotspot-enabled nationwide wireless multiplayer in addition to the normal ad-hoc localized games most PSP titles will support out of the box. Aside from the normal multiplayer match-ups, mini-games like Hockey, Tag, Basketball, King of the Hill and a slew of others offer a little head-to-head action. We didn't get a chance to check it out extensively, but a trading card game has also been implemented to allow ATV, rider and gear trades between players.
It took a while to get used to the controls, since the shoulder buttons are dominated by the R button's powerslides and the L button's trick system (the game promises 34 different tricks, though we were stuck doing just a half dozen or so), but the process of using the analog nub to pre-load jumps and the general feel of the game once we got into a racing rhythm was as smooth as the console versions.
In multiplayer matches, though it was obvious that the extra overhead hit the PSP rather hard. The framerate chugged a bit and the controls seemed extra finicky, though that could have just been our relative inexperience with the analog nub.
The trading card game and online multiplayer seem like they offer an impressive level of depth for a portable ATV game, but we'll have to reserve final judgement until we get our hands on a boxed copy. In the mean time, keep your eyes peeled for media updates as we get closer to launch.
When the ATV Offroad Fury franchise was born out of the partnership between Sony and offroading development darlings Rainbow Studios, it was a match made in heaven for most. It's one of Sony's best selling series' (yes, beating out even favorites like the Jak and Ratchet games), you see, and so when THQ bought Rainbow outright, the future of the series was a bit of a question mark. Climax, best known for their Moto GP efforts, stepped up and carried the series on, plying their experience with Acclaim's ATV Quad Power Racing franchise. The transition worked for the most part, and everyone danced together gleefully while mud spattered everything in sight. It was joyous.
Enter the PSP version, largely untouched and featuring every bit of the same multi-surface offroad racing present in its bigger PS2 brother. 24+ riders on 30+ tracks mean more than a little variety, though you mileage with the game will likely go about as far as your enjoyment with the console versions.
To help thicken up the multiplayer experience, Climax has opted to piggyback on top of Sony's online network to allow for hotspot-enabled nationwide wireless multiplayer in addition to the normal ad-hoc localized games most PSP titles will support out of the box. Aside from the normal multiplayer match-ups, mini-games like Hockey, Tag, Basketball, King of the Hill and a slew of others offer a little head-to-head action. We didn't get a chance to check it out extensively, but a trading card game has also been implemented to allow ATV, rider and gear trades between players.
It took a while to get used to the controls, since the shoulder buttons are dominated by the R button's powerslides and the L button's trick system (the game promises 34 different tricks, though we were stuck doing just a half dozen or so), but the process of using the analog nub to pre-load jumps and the general feel of the game once we got into a racing rhythm was as smooth as the console versions.
In multiplayer matches, though it was obvious that the extra overhead hit the PSP rather hard. The framerate chugged a bit and the controls seemed extra finicky, though that could have just been our relative inexperience with the analog nub.
The trading card game and online multiplayer seem like they offer an impressive level of depth for a portable ATV game, but we'll have to reserve final judgement until we get our hands on a boxed copy. In the mean time, keep your eyes peeled for media updates as we get closer to launch.
