MX vs ATV Untamed

Jan 11, 2008

On the DS, MX vs ATV Untamed continues its bizarre trend of being a near-completely different game from other versions. The PSP version decided on inexplicably burying the content under mounds locked doors and added a superfluous free roaming environment. The DS version, for no reason we could see, takes the fun of blasting around through farmlands and desert canyons… and sticks the whole game inside stadiums.

Sure, we understand that it’s unfeasible to expect the same number of tracks and vehicles as the next-gen cousins, but why must every track be limited to bumps and copy-paste U-turns? Sure, they are laid out like real-life race tracks, but why not give us some variety? Why not have both stadium and countryside roving?

Like the PSP version, the DS strays from reason and gives you a significant challenge at the lowest difficulty setting. Right off the bat, you’ve got to understand pre-loading your jumps and popping the clutch in order to beat the AI on Amateur difficulty.

This version not only offers the stalest “variety” of tracks, but also the least number of events. You either race on the same 10 tracks for speed, or you race on the same 10 tracks for stunt points. At least the PSP versions stunt challenges and waypoint races, while fairly broken, were quite different from the races.