Handheld
(PSP) MX vs. ATV Untamed
By George Damidas
Jan 30, 2008, 7 :17 am

I’m really not sure what happened here. I was expecting great things from this, it seems all but done and done from the outset: a portable racer by one of my favorite studios that have proven more than accomplished in the genre. That, unfortunately, isn’t how it turned out. Off-road racing has been done right before and Rainbow Studios is undeniably accomplished studio, so I’m more than a little surprised at the mediocrity of MX vs. ATV Untamed on the PSP. Ohhhh … that’s just the Rainbow Studios logo; Tantalus developed this. Well, that does explain a lot. Moving along …

Things really don’t look all that bad when you’re just starting out. There is an open world to romp around in, with lighted ramps that act as events triggers when you’re ready to put your skills to the test. As the events are completed subsequent stages and vehicles are unlocked. It’s a pretty simple system that, in conjunction with a combo system akin to the Tony Hawk series, should encourage replaying.

This event selection process, this normally straightforward-to-the-point-of-standard process, is indicative of the game’s design. When trying to find an event, it becomes clear that the area, the same area in which of the challenges take place, must be surveyed in order to find the desired event. When the appropriate ramp is found, there is still the hassle of actually hitting the button during the brief moment while over the center light to engage the challenge, made needlessly cumbersome due to the spotty controls and timing. Something as simple as this, wrapped up in what could have been a cool way to learn the lay of the land, turns into such a pain that going through the sterile menu process to select the desired event proves itself to be the superior method.

The events themselves aren’t a bad lot, consisting of old faithful challenges that will be familiar to any and all players: general races, waypoint races, collecting flags, winning by scoring the most in combos, time attack, and a combination of racing while scoring the most points possible. The lack of any noteworthy challenges wasn’t a problem for me, because, in theory, the stunt system should lend itself well to the point events and the genre to the pure racing challenges. The problems aren’t with these, then, but with the game’s controls, course layout, and how the game tallies points.

When racing the computer, the rubber band effect – the computer never getting too far behind or too far ahead, as to always present a challenge – is amped up to the point where it’s just frustrating. The computer will obviously flub up on a corner, smacking into the dirt and rolling to a stop, only to come blowing past you a few moments later despite your driving being, at worst, decent. It isn’t just in the racing this will occur but also in stunt challenges, here you will see the computer screw up royally in the beginning but, suddenly, shoot past your score by suddenly becoming amazing. There is an art to increasing a game’s difficulty and presenting a realistic, complete challenge, and Untamed fails to provide anything more than skewed randomness.

The stunt system could have done a lot to bring up the poor competition, but it barely manages to tread water thanks to inadequate controls, a sporadic scoring system, and poor course design. I don’t expect off-road vehicles to be precise, and they shouldn’t be, but they should provide a means to properly navigate courses, but that just isn’t the case here. The first level has a great example of the problems: a flag is on a railroad car, which requires driving over a railroad track and up a ramp to access, but either the rails send the bike flying off course or the mass of blue stuff the cars are hauling does. It’s incredibly frustrating. That kind of obstacle layout is common, with ramps, jumps, and environmental obstructions placed in the worst spots. I also got stuck in corners several times, unable to do much of anything but jerk back and forth as I fought the controls until time ran out. It all seems so haphazardly put together. Stunt scores are tallied by both the tricks done while in the air and how the smooth the landing is, by poorer landings subtracting from the points earned from doing stunts, but there doesn’t seem to be any clear reason as to why a landing is “Okay” or “Sloppy” - a crash and a perfect landing are easy to see, but landings will often look identical but be scored differently. The manual is inadequate in all regards, so there isn’t much there in helping in this (or any) matter.

There is also a multiplayer mode, for those wanting to punish your friends. Well, it might be the only way to get a fair challenge out of the deal. If you’re hankering for some multi off-road action, I don’t think there are many alternatives out there; I would certainly look hard, though.

Overall: 4/10