ATV Offroad Fury was a PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable series of ATV racing games. Developed initially by Rainbow Studios and later by Climax Group, the series is marked by the stunt system, where hitting different combinations of buttons in midair caused the player character to perform stunts, each assigned a name and point system, predominantly used in the freestyle mode. Along with its notable indie soundtrack, the Offroad Series served as one of the flagship franchises of Sony in the early days of the PlayStation 2.
Gameplay is split between three core modes. Racing, which the player can participate in via the Championship mode, regular multiplayer and single player races, and lap attack mode, revolves around finishing a certain amount of laps as fast as possible using their repertoire of driving skills. Freestyle, also a championship and multiplayer event, revolves around performing as many stunts as possible in order to get the highest score, in an almost free roam environment. Finally there are minigames, which enables the player and a group of friends to play sports such as basketball, hockey, and soccer in their ATVs. Races are mostly confined to special race tracks, freestyle to free roam environments, and the various minigames to special arenas.
Customization is key selling point of the series, as besides the ability to change the colour and gender of their rider, players are able to customize each and every individual part of their ATV and rider gear, which are divided into different brands and offer varying statistical benefits.
Provides Examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: The AI names (and default high-score listings) have names like BRYAN, ROBERTS, NOLAN, INVERSIN, PANZER, DICOSOLA, and KEVDOG.
- Artificial Stupidity: At least in the first game, AI racers do not utilize reverse. This leads to situations where they would constantly wreck at the same location for a while until some happenstance event dislodges them.
- Bloodless Carnage: No matter how hard your rider bails, they never even get any cuts (which is fair, considering the games are mostly rated E - E10). Heck, you can't even dent your vehicle.
- Invisible Walls: Another mainstay of the series. Most of the freestyle maps are cut off, and the ones that aren't have a auto respawn within bounds timer activated whenever the player character goes too far.
- The first two entries have the walls blow you across the map if you get to far from bounds, much like other Rainbow-developed games.
- Jungle Japes: A few appear, but they usually have tracks for players to drive on, making them easy to navigate unless the player goes off road.
- Made of Iron: The ATV rider can survive being slung across the entire gameplay area and hit the ground at several miles an hour, yet only show signs of minor injury even if their ATV falls on top of them afterwards! This makes sense though, as any blood, gore, or death would probably bump the rating up to a T or M.
- Palmtree Panic: Plenty of beach areas to explore. One area in the second game even has sharks and a volcano! Though neither pose any sort of threat to the player.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: Gender affects only one thing: the character model of the rider. Since all the rider models are decked out in racing gear that doesn't even show their face this hardly makes a difference anyway.
- Ragdoll Physics: Played straight throughout. Taking large ramps and failing stunts will result in the player character comically falling off their ATV, which spins off into the distance. In one particularly noteworthy example, occuring in "2", the racer has a chance to randomly be bitten by a near invisible rattlesnake, which sends them flying into the distance.
- Scenery Porn: Several HUGE and beautiful (for its time) enviroments for you to explore and enjoy.
- Shifting Sand Land: Each game has plenty, usually with really tall hills. One even has a mini dust tornado blowing about!
- Super Drowning Skills: Spending more than a few seconds underwater will reset the driver.
- Tuckerization:
- All of the default AI names and high score entries are references to the developers.
- Several scenery items in 1 and 2 likewise feature name-drops of the developers.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can't kill the driver or destroy the ATV, but you can wipe out on purpose, causing the driver to be launched from ther vehicle and wither around on the ground in agony for a few seconds before they respawn.
- Virtual Paper Doll: Both the riders and their ATVs can be customized.
