ATV Quad Power Racing 2

"Want to watch somebody die? If you do, this is a great game for you!"

ATV Quad Power Racing 2 is a lacking game that needs some fun into it's horrible game style. Read on to find out why I believe this is true. Actually, revise that. Read on to find out why this game is so terrible!

Story:

There is no story! Not one bit at all! You just hop onto an ATV and try to win races and pull of these "tricks" in the air. This is not as good as it sounds because most of the times you try, you will hit the ground and die because your feet aren't all the way where they should be. Yes, you die from this! Wow, who literally wants to just hop onto and ATV and drive for their life's story every day of their lives? No one wants that! They could've invented something for the player as they did with other games such as the Tony Hawk games, as strange and twisted as that story is. This is just pathetic!

Story: 1/10

Graphics:

The graphics on this game are actually quite interesting. They include weird "2.5" dimensional slips with exaggerated cell shadings. This causes every course to look like a lunar eclipse is taking place. This can be very confusing and unnerving, considering you can't even see the course! The backgrounds are pretty good, at least the sky isn't black on EVERY SINGLE course. Oh wait, yes it is. However, the rain and snow are actually quite detailed. The vehicles look pretty good despite looking strangely off. Don't ask me what looks wrong with them, something just seems messed up. The profile selection lack some diversity, and would be better if there were more people to choose from when creating your character.

Graphics: 7/10

Sound:

The main sound for this game comes from the music player. This is what got the "mild lyrics" into the games rating. Some of the songs are pretty much junk that I cannot bear to listen to. None of them are anything I would ever dream of listening to over anything I listen to today. At least it lets you choose which of it's evil songs to hear. You can also adjust the sound effects and such things like that. Overall the music is fairly BLAH for me, due to a poor selection and "unique" background musics. It is made more interesting (not better, but interesting) with "commentary" whenever my character hits something and dies, which is about every 10 seconds. The special effects settings are just a way to make it seem as if you have control over what you hear. I listen to my own music while playing this game.

Sound: 4/10

Gameplay:

The gameplay is pretty fair, except how they made the vehicles hard to control to fit their "style". This was not very smart for Acclaim to do, unless they wanted a single vehicle or two to have drastic pros and cons. However, that is not the case here. The vehicles will eject you if you hit anything when you are going over 20 MPH, which is exceedingly annoying. The aerial tricks involve pressing stupid combinations of buttons simultaneously and hoping it doesn't wipe you out. Again resulting in death. The tricks are labelled "Combat Moves" to try to get you to become interested with the game. What a joke! They involve kicking in a certain direction for a small range. They also last little time, except for the really high levelled ones, where it takes so long you hit the ground and die. If there's anyone near that region it will miss. Guaranteed. This really degrades away from their big promotion of "16 awesome combat moves in your arsenal". Getting points will refill a boost meter, but guess what? If you die that meter will drain by half of it's full capacity. When you begin to boost you will nearly almost crash immediately upon doing so because of the uncontrollable speed and the fact that you cannot touch anything, therefore losing your boost! Sound helpful? It isn't helpful in the slightest way imaginable. Take my word for that.

Gameplay: 5/10

Replay Value:

What can I say here? Let's start with the discouraging fact that in championship mode, (where you have to race 3 laps) if you hit something you will die and fall hopelessly behind everyone and have to restart (and if you've read anything in this review you would know just how easy it is to die!). But there is no restart! You have to quit the championship and start over. Also, it will take forever to load, even if you die by something that isn't random or the game's fault. Great! If you want a quick game you can race a few laps in less than 10 minutes, this isn't for you. The opening demo and loading takes about 5-10 minutes to go through, depending if you watch it or skip it. The laps are all the same and the multi-player is the worst thing ever invented for the sole fact that you CANNOT do anything besides race on a few REALLY short courses and do a "duel". A duel consists of heading into the stadium (the trick stadium), and spending 10 minutes trying to find your opponant while dodging deadly platforms that you can't even bump! They are seriously more of a threat than your target. Then there's the fact that your opponent usually just hides and waits for you to wipe out and kill yourself. Good for you! You crashed and your friend won. Isn't that just that most wonderful thing ever?

Replay Value: 3/10

Recap: Not a fun game to play, very stressful and pointless. The "challenges" are impossible. Someone needs to look up the word challenges in a dictionary. I did and this is what I found: An invitation to compete in a sport. Here is the definition of impossible: Hopeless. Big difference. Acclaim didn't notice that when they were making this game (or else they were using a horrible dictionary)! This game is an un-fun, sorry excuse for a game in modern society.

Scores: Story: 1/10 Graphics: 7/10 Sound: 4/10 Gameplay: 5/10 Replay value: 3/10 Overall: 4/10

Rent or Buy:

Don't touch this game! Haven't you been reading what I've been saying?

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 02/22/05, Updated 01/09/06