4x4 Evolution

"I'd rather pass this one and try Evo2 if i were you."

4x4 Evolution is made by the creators of Monster Truck Madness 1&2 namely TRI. There were lots and lots of high hopes for this title since MTM 1&2 were really great. TRI have offered us the possibility to give them suggestions to the game to a message board. I wonder if they listened to us enough.

The graphics of the game are good, no make that real good. Driving on the track Arizona for example is always relaxing me because of the colours. I don’t know why though. Uhm… I don’t really have much to add to this subject.

Sound and Music are good. They don’t fall into the oblivion but they don’t reach for the stars neither.

When you start the game you are given enough money to buy a truck for racing. The manufacturers are plenty, from Ford to Nissan to Mitsubishi etc. Each of these brands has also a racing truck. That’s the best one they have and that’s the one you must reach if you want to start competing online against humans. Ah to make a note here: You can play online against people using PC, DC or a Mac. Yeah pretty cool isn’t it?
Now offline racing is done in form of events. These events are holding a certain amount of racetracks and you need to win them (of course) to make money for a better and better truck and a better chance of winning online. The game engine is pretty good but it has some “features” that annoy me: Only rear tyres leave marks and you get a “flying for ever and ever” feeling. It’s like you are driving on the moon (not that I actually did that). Also there isn’t any physically (nor mentally) damage so your trucks will always look like they came out of the box.
Oh and the biggest problem was that for some reason lots of the profiles got deleted for an unknown reason. In the end after 1-2 months TRI did came up with a patch that fixed this (halleluiah).

The game comes with presumably 16 tracks. The actual number is 15 however there are reports of the 16th track and two people managed to somehow find it. One of them gave us a detailed explanation in case anyone of you wants to try it. You need to collect all the treasures (oops I forgot to add, they offer you cash bonus if you find them) and the treasure on Construction Junction is buried 200 feet under the ground in the 0,0,0 location. He says that he somehow hit that location and it transported him to the 16th track. TRI never said anything about this matter; they always kept their mouths closed.
The racetracks have a good design and they offer you dynamic objects. I mean there are plains flying around, farm vehicles driving around etc.

The AI is a little easy at the start but as you progress in the game they become a real pain in the rear tyre… or side tyre. And I do mean a big pain.

To this game you can add the Monster Truck Madness 2 tracks as add-ons and of course 3rd party tracks and trucks that makes it more fun and of course, more fun to play online.

Graphics – 8

Sound – 8

Truck Handling – 7

Replay ability – 7
Still better play online, it’s a lot more fun.

Overall – 7

Even though pretty low score this was one of the best off-road games when it appeared.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/18/02, Updated 07/18/02