4x4 EVO 2 (2001,02,03) Review #Blogpost

4x4 EVO 2 is an open world and track based off-road racing game that came out in 2001, 2002 and 2003 on Windows, Original Xbox, Play station 2, GameCube and Mac OS. It is the worst console game I have ever played and I’ve played those sh!t Hello Kitty games on the Gameboy Advance so that really is saying something. It was developed by Terminal Reality and published by Gathering of Developers (That is actually the name of the company), BAM! Entertainment, Universal Interactive and Aspyr.

4x4 EVO 2 has vehicles from nine manufactures which include Dodge, Jeep, Nissan, Infiniti, Lexus, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Chevrolet, and GMC. For some reason Ford had been taken out of the game which would have given the game a wider audience. Land Rover didn’t make an appearance in 4x4 EVO 2 either. Why? Land Rover most likely would have said yes to be in the game.

There are loads of off road modifications that can be fitted to any car in the game and they all work brilliantly but it the game doesn’t tell you if one part is compatible with another so you have to spend a lot of money which takes ages to accumulate in the first place, buy a part, then find a better part only to find that the original part isn’t compatible. There are also a lot of performance parts as well such as turbos and superchargers that do actually make a really big difference and in my mind would only work in an arcade game like 4x4 EVO. I problem that I found is that you shouldn’t put massive tires on your car without adding power because you would slow you car down. To be far that does happen in real life.

There are two kinds of driving in the game. The off road circuit racing is alright for an arcade game, but I can only drive with the sort of bonnet/hood view because the chase view gets further away the faster you drive and that’s really irritating. The other kind of driving in the game is a sort of challenge thing where you driving around in a free roam map doing challenges such as finding dinosaur bones or something like that. I just use it to test car parts. This racing isn’t fun at all which is mainly down to the AI being a$$holes, but the free roam challenge part can be fun with modified trucks.

In conclusion 4x4 Evo 2 has good free roam maps, but the circuit maps were just terrible and the AI just adds to the terribleness (is that even a word?). The lack of car manufactures is a disappointment along with physics and camera angles as well. The upgradable parts are the best part about this game by far. 4x4 Evo 2 is better than Spintires, Screamer 4x4 and Test Drive Off Road in one aspect and that is price. Terminal Reality’s license to use the vehicles in the game had expired which means that you able to download the game for free. Overall I will give 4x4 Evo 2 a 5 out of 10.