MX vs. ATV Unleashed

MX vs. ATV Unleashed was, at the time of its release, the most bizarre racing game developed by Rainbow Studios. This may come as a surprise, seeing as offroad racing is Rainbow’s signature genre. This is their sixth entry in this style, aiming to be a followup to MX Unleashed while also bringing back the ATV gameplay found in Offroad Fury. Of course, 4x4 vehicles are fun and all, though it’s clear from how everything handles that the motorcycles were the main focus here. As far as this ‘MX vs. ATV’ battle goes, the winner is obvious!

Nothing seems strange about this game's presentation at first glance. To any series newcomers, this looks like just about any other racing game, albeit lacking in style. Once you dive into the championship mode, you’re given the choice between Nationals and Supercross, and then another choice between ATVs and dirt bikes. It’s far more straightforward compared to Rainbow’s previous games, though it also skips out on some of the repetition that comes with having to race the same tracks over and over again. Or does it? Unfortunately, Unleashed has its own strange design choice where, in order to move on to the next track in the championship, you have to finish each race twice in a row. Or, if you opt to do the practice laps, three times in a row. This decision was baffling to me, seeing as you already have to do each championship twice (once with each vehicle).

As far as the main content goes, these four championships are all that appear to be available for completion’s sake. Though, the content goes far deeper than the championships lead you to believe. Once you hop into the ‘single player’ menus, you’ll notice a neverending cascade of options. It’s here that Rainbow’s sandbox of offroading nonsense finally gets revealed. You can take any vehicle you want, throw it on whatever track you want, and race against whatever opponents you want. In my review for MX Unleashed, I mentioned wanting to race the monster truck on the supercross tracks, and now I can do just that! Hell, I can even race it against OTHER monster trucks, turning the race into one big circus show.

Besides Supercross and National, you’ll also notice a slew of other tracks. Freestyle, Hill Climb, Open Class special tracks, ‘Supermoto’. Additionally, you’ll notice that Waypoint races have returned from Offroad Fury! Then you also have a large selection of vehicles to choose from. Buggies, monster trucks, golf carts, trophy trucks, and your usual ATVs and motorcycles. I’m left wondering why some of these other tracks didn’t get their own championships, though the game still rewards you for finishing races through the regular single player mode, anyways. Considering the amount of options, I can’t complain that each vehicle in a class drives the same as each other. If I want something different, I can play a different class entirely. And even though the bikes are the only class that feel polished, I still have fun messing around with all the other janky vehicles.

When it comes to trying to assess this as a whole, I’m torn between the large pool of content and the unattractive presentation of its events. Obviously the gameplay has to win me over in the end, but navigating through these menus is a huge hindrance on the experience. Rainbow tried their best to fit as much as they could into the mid-race pause screen, though every time I want to change my vehicle and replay the same track, I don’t have a quick way to do it. Regardless of how you set up the next race, you need to dig through and reapply every setting for it. You can’t just tweak your current ones. It’s even more frustrating when you have to quit to the main menu to get the settings you want. These loading screens take a while! I’m playing on the PS2, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the Xbox or PC versions are more tolerable for this. But either way, the menu navigation for single player mode tacks on a lot of downtime.

The item shop is also mostly useless here. On top of having a ton of content to unlock, each item is worth an unnecessary amount of points. Not only that, but you are not given any indication of how to unlock the items normally. It’s going to end up taking you less time playing through the game and unlocking it randomly than it would grinding out points to unlock something specific.

With such a large selection of modes to choose from, the track design ends up having more variety than any of Rainbow’s previous offroad games. If you want those classic bumps and jumps, the Nationals and Supercross tracks are more or less the same as they’ve always been. The Waypoint tracks are reminiscent of how they were designed in the early Rainbow games, where you need to traverse an open map, trying to find the best possible route through the hills in order to get the best time. The Hill Climb tracks shift the focus away from optimizing jumps to pure terrain navigation. You get these little 10-20 second runs up a steep incline where your use of clutch comes into play. Not every vehicle can get up these hills, from what I experienced! Finally, the other bonus tracks explore the missing gaps, including tracks that play like a 2 minute rally stage, larger tracks intended for the big 4x4 vehicles, and Supermoto tracks that make use of tarmac and flatter track designs.

As far as 6th gen Rainbow games go, this one falls right into the middle, quality wise. Most of its gameplay is fine, the track selection is great, with the only questionable aspect being the organization of its content. I would still recommend Offroad Fury 2 over this, though if all you want to do is screw around with weird track and vehicle combinations and time trials, MX vs. ATV Unleashed is a good choice. Especially if you mostly care about the motorcycle gameplay above all else, this was as good as Rainbow got it at the time. I’d say that’s good enough on its own!

Despite the name, there are separate championship modes for both ATV's and MX, rather than them battling it out in the same race. Additionally, there's other types of vehicle thrown in here, such as golf carts, helicopters, dune buggies, monster trucks and planes. The ATV's and MX vehicles seem to handle the same even though you would expect way more agility with the MX and more grip with the ATV's.

The courses are full of bumpy elevation, and the bouncy physics mean you spend a lot of time in the air. The skill in racing is knowing when to launch yourself high in the air, and when to exit a jump early to keep your vehicle on the ground. You don't have to worry about using the brakes, just hold down the accelerator, turn when required, and decide whether to lean back or forward to change your altitude as you bounce around the track.

Whilst in the air, you can pull off tricks to score points. It seems purely optional though and is just a way of showing off. I saw no other benefit for doing so.

The Nationals Championship features a mix of themed courses from desert, snow, forest etc. The THQ SX series features indoor stadium courses, so each lap is shorter but you do more of them. After you complete a few races, you will be given a one-off race in one of the alternative vehicles (golf carts, helicopters etc.) to unlock them if you are victorious. The change in handling is hard to get used to, especially when you are given the helicopter without an explanation of the controls.

There's plenty of extra race types to try outside the championship including challenges, hill climbs, waypoint races, and quick race.

The game has one of those annoying menu systems where you select a file, select load, then it wants confirmation if you really want to load, then tells you that it has loaded correctly. If there's only one file, why can't it just automatically load it and only inform me if there is a problem?

The game supports an Xbox 360 controller but requires the use of the D-Pad in the menu, and the analogue stick when racing.

I felt the game should have had a tutorial to explain the more advanced concepts. Reading other people's comments you heard about 'pre-loading the suspension' and 'disengaging the clutch'. I tried these techniques from what I understood but didn't notice any performance boosts, so I was definitely missing something.

Other than that, I often felt there wasn't much skill to the game; you can play fairly casually and come out victorious. It didn't seem to have the intensity featured in other racing games. On the hard difficulty, the racers were more bunched up and the victor seemed to be decided based on who took the best racing line during the last few turns.