The vehicle loadout includes a handful of different classes including a decent assortment of 250cc and 550cc bikes and 4 ATV quads to pick from. It amounts to six racing events, each week on the same track, and at the end, hopefully you're numero uno. That is, you don't do any training, partying, hiking during the days between the end of the previous week and the next week you've agreed to start. Even though Untamed calls it "Week 2," nothing has changed. You'll play through the first week, and once it's done, the game will just ask if you want to continue to the next week. Supposedly, you're playing a six week challenge over six tracks that hosts two motos a week and your combined race position determines your overall standing. Championship is similar, though it's meant to sound different in its presentation, it's really not. X-Cross is broken down into four divisions with four events each with up to three races (depending on how well you do) and two motos.
The Rules of Engagement The two main so-called career modes are X-Cross and Championship each has a series of races that lead to a showdown for the number one spot.
Each one of the events comes with 2 to 4 tracks open with between another 5 to 8 more to unlock as you beat each track. And when we say ski jump, we mean big, huge ski jump, over which you'll compete in 5 minute heats to see how many points you can rack up throwing your body hundreds of feet in the air for killer taunts and seat grabs. The Freestyle mode here offers Gap, High Score and Combo challenges along with probably our favorite feature of the game, the Ski Jump. For instance, on PS2, Freeride consists of simply running through 12 Supercross tracks with all the timers and lap counters turned off.
There are main events like Nationals, Supercross, Supermoto, Opencross, Freestyle, Freeride, Waypoint, and smaller, more mini-game geared fare like Bonus Tracks, Hill Climb and Challenge modes, but don't be fooled -most of these are very different on the PS2 edition. Custom Events mode is a great way to get a good taste of all 10 events.
The interface looks the same but once you choose what do from the Custom Events, X-Cross tourney or Championship modes, you'll immediately notice something missing the rad practice hangar on the PS3 and 360 versions is MIA, leaving you to endure lots of long, long load times. On the surface, it's obvious that Incinerator and Rainbow exchanged some assets, but the PS2 edition has different tracks, events and minigames, making it an entirely different game from the next-gen versions. If upgrading is out of the question, Untamed is still fun to play on PS2, but boy does it look bad.
Kiddies, take our advice-it's just about time to upgrade to a next-gen system you shouldn't be playing brand new games that look this bad. That's not all to say Untamed for PS2 is horrible, but after playing through hours of X-Cross and Custom Events on other platforms, it's hard to transition to the washed-out colors, simplistic environmental designs and janky animations on PS2. Sadly, the PS2 edition pales in comparison to the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, unsurprising considering that Rainbow Studios didn't work on it - THQ slaved out the dev duties to Incinerator Studios so Rainbow could focus on the next-gen and handheld version. ATV Unleashed than we can write off as research or work-related, we were pretty stoked to play MX vs. Considering some of us spent more time playing 2005's MX vs.