Quad Power 2 is essentially a racing game and an extreme sports game mixed in one. All of the basics are covered: you've got your general career mode (take a created rider through a series of increasingly difficult races, earning new bikes and bettering your rider's skill ratings), you've got your very basic trick system (press a direction and a button to pull of a trick, combine multiple tricks for multiplier), your typical "no rules" atmosphere, and the obligatory punk-rock-meets-nü-metal-ish sound track for added xxxtreme-ness (that's three x's, thrice the x-treme!).

And therein lies QP2's biggest flaw. It's a competent game on almost every level, yet at the same time, it doesn't stand out in any way. Playing the game is like playing parts of a dozen other games you've already played. Playing Career mode is like playing the same career mode you've already played in every Tony Hawk and every Dave Mirra. Every race feels like something you've already done - and done better - in ATV Offroad. I could even swear I've heard the exact same music used during the menus, in a previous game's menus. No joke.

That out of the way, like I said, the game is still at least competent on most levels. The gameplay is fun, and at least a bit more imaginative than in the first, as the tracks you race on are designed with less realism, and more huge slopes and jumps in mind - almost similar to a snowboarding game like SSX, strangely enough. Though during the early stages, I must admit the game really starts at a lull. Until you've got the best bike and a beefed-up rider, the physics of the game seem overly lackluster, and the sense of speed just isn't there, so unless you really put some effort into the game, you're not going to see what it really has to offer.

Aside from the career mode, QP2 does offer a couple of other, however limited, areas of interest: Arcade mode and Challenge mode. Arcade mode consists of fifteen two-lap variations of the career mode's tracks, where instead of unlocking more powerful bikes and building up your character, you're racing to unlock the game's tracks for use in the other modes. Challenge mode consists of twelve obstacle-course-like challenges, where your goal is to get from one end of the course to the other under a certain time. Depending on your time, you'll be able to unlock all of the pro riders in the game through Challenge mode. You'll also find your standard set of self explanatory modes here as well, such as Single Race, Freestyle, and Time Trial.

Graphically, there is a strange dichotomy between technical prowess and actual "looks." On one hand, the visuals are technically very impressive, featuring huge tracks, well-animated bikes and riders, and highly detailed textures that even adjust to the lighting in real time. And at the same time, the game is marred by other technical issues. Namely, the game is accompanied by a very bad case of early-PS2-game-graininess-syndrome (EPS2GGS ^TM). Just looking at the game can often strain your eyes, as the whole picture seems to be going through some kind of evil, pre-RF signal, despite all of your nifty gaming-centric home theatre accommodations.

Those aren't all of the game's graphical problems, however. You can really tell this game should've been given a few more months, as it's host to a lot of problems that just shouldn't be in there, such as the jumpy frame rate, and the occasional object that suddenly appears after you've gotten a certain distance from it. I've also experienced my fair share of glitches. It's almost common to see a single frame of the game randomly flash black and then back again. Subliminal messages? You decide. Nevertheless, even with all of the faults, QP2 still manages to be a very pretty game.

The sequel's soundtrack continues the precedent: it's pretty much the same thing you're going to find in every other extreme sports game. Scratch that, it's a fraction of the same thing you're going to find in every other extreme sports game, considering the game features a grand total of seven (VII; 7; 10 - 3; 5 + 2; s-e-v-e-n) songs. A few of the names are probably recognizable, such as Godsmack and Box Car Racer, and while the rest would probably be unfamiliar to most people, they all go along with the similar style. It's all fairly typical, though some of the songs are a bit more catchy than I would've thought beforehand. Music aside, the sound effects are all fairly basic as well, but they do their job just fine.

In the end, Quad Power 2 is an admirable effort by Acclaim, but the fact that it just doesn't stand out in any fashion really puts a damper on most of the good things it has going, and the fact that most of those things have already been done better in many other games, makes this a hard game to sell.If you're a big racing fan or a big ATV fan and have already had your fill of ATV Offroad 1 and 2, then Quad Power 2 may be worth a look on the cheap, but it's probably best as a rental.

· · · Andy