Ford Racing: Off Road, in Europe sold as Land Rover Ford Off Road is decent fun racing game with a nice sense of speed and a small but okay motivational sytem of buying cars and a lot unlocables. If it had arrived 5-6 years earlier and had been published by EA (whos games seem to be better rated by the big gaming mags), it would have been s small hit. For its time, 2008, is notFord Racing: Off Road, in Europe sold as Land Rover Ford Off Road is decent fun racing game with a nice sense of speed and a small but okay motivational sytem of buying cars and a lot unlocables. If it had arrived 5-6 years earlier and had been published by EA (whos games seem to be better rated by the big gaming mags), it would have been s small hit. For its time, 2008, is not state-of-the-art, too few gaming modes, to less variation on the tracks, no expansive car upgrading system. The driving mechanics - for me the most important thing at racing games - ARE fun! Though it doesn't feel like 4x4 driving over rocks and bushes, but rather like cruising with an high-tec vehicle over fine sand in an hilly environment. The mechanics of decelerate for better curve driving works well, and a lot of races your ride a lot head to head with your opponents, which gives you some racing thrill. Surprisingly there is a lot of speed sensation, because the graphics run extremly fluid and fast. Considering that there is not a lot 4x4 driving games on the PS2, I can recommend the game, even though it is not that thrilling and packed with extras like Test Drive Unlimited, Shox, ATV Off Road 4 or Flatout. In my opinion it is about as good as Ford Racing 2, but not that diverse considering the only 4x4 cars and the different landscapes. But it has a lot of other fun elements implemented, like the new game modes (e.g. goldrush where you have to collect coin while racing), the fact that you can choose between a lot of different paths on the tracks and things like racing over water streams in canyons.
In fact, I don't understand how IGN can say things like "without any sense of speed", though this game transports, because of its fluid graphics and high racing speed, a much higher sense of speed than e.g. the Need for Speed games, which on the PS2 all request a bit too much from the PS2-hardware, why they don't have a really fluid gameplay. Maybe it's true what many say, that EA-games generally are rated better by IGN than other games.… Expand