4x4 Evo

aka: 4x4 Evolution
Moby ID: 4715
Macintosh Specs
Buy on Dreamcast
$17.99 used on eBay
Buy on PlayStation 2
$6.47 used on eBay
Buy on Windows
$7.00 used on eBay
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Description official descriptions

4x4 Evo is a racing game featuring real-life pickup trucks and SUV's. Actual trucks from manufacturers such as Chevrolet, Ford, Dodge, Nissan, Toyota and more are included.

The actual racing game is based very heavily on Terminal Reality's Monster Truck Madness series of games, except with SUV's instead of monster trucks.

One significant feature of 4x4 Evo is the online multi-player option. The Dreamcast, PC, and Macintosh versions can compete against each other in 4 player online races.

In addition to the on-line mode of play, there is a single player career mode. The career mode gives you a small allotment of money with which to purchase a truck. You then can compete in races to earn more money for more trucks or performance parts for your current truck.

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Credits (Windows version)

133 People (114 developers, 19 thanks) · View all

Created by
  • Terminal Reality
Producer
Lead Programmer
Programming
Lead Artist
Art
Additional Art
Lead Level Designer
Music
Sound Effects
Biz Guy
PR
House Mom
Quality Assurance Manager
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 70% (based on 57 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 26 ratings with 1 reviews)

Offroad racing not as attractive as it first seems

The Good
Lots of vehicles, lots of makes, career mode allows vehicle upgrades, 15 different tracks have plenty of different challenges, multiplayer support (cross-platform too!), mod tools that allow new tracks and new vehicles, multiple game modes (quick race, career, hot lap)

The Bad
Some major manufacturers absent (most notably, no Jeep, but also no Mercedes, Land Rover, Subaru, Isuzu, etc.), car upgrade trees are quite obscure (pre-requisites are not stated clearly), 15 tracks can only be combined so many ways (and they cannot be mirrored or reversed), AI are very weak on some tracks but strong on others (and scales with your vehicle!), no limit on money, just repeat the race again and again, no cruise mode where you can just drive around on a level and look at the scenary.

The Bottom Line
4x4 Evo gives you the chance to do what no one would dare to do with their SUV... do a 150 ft jump and that sort of crazy stunt. Other than that... It's pretty much just another racing game where the optimal path is not that obvious.

You have multiple game modes: quick race (randomly picked vehicles of same class), hot lap (race against ghost car), career (start with some money, buy a vehicle, race to win more, add vehicle and/or enhancement parts, repeat ad infinitum), and multiplayer. Quick race and Hot Lap and obvious, so it's career where you will spend most of your time.

You start with 30000, and you can choose a vehicle from those available. There are over 150 to choose from, but many are just different trim levels of the same vehicle.

If you have any money left over, you can buy parts to be installed on the vehicle. The parts range from simple things like bush guard and fog lights to Racing grade ECU and extremely tall suspension upgrades, and everything in between. Don't have money now? Just win some races and you'll get more!

There are 15 different "levels" available in career, and they are combined in various ways (and various weather conditions and time-of-day) to get you both special events and special series (which is basically multiple races one after another). The simple series win very little, while the big series can net you a LOT of money if you win.

Once you get in the race, you'll realize there is no cockpit. All the gauges are in a virtual cockpit style overlay. The gauges are quite easy to read, and it even tracks your mileage on this vehicle. Graphics are quite good and nicely detailed The suspensions flex and bounce convincingly as the vehicle settles and bounces on their heavy loads. On the other hand, vehicle damage is NOT modelled. The worst that can happen to your vehicle is it tipped over or rolled (which is actually VERY HARD to do). In that case, hit H (for Help) will upright you at the last checkpoint you passed through.

Each of the tracks has a lot of shortcuts. As the 4x4's don't really need roads, you will be going offroad a lot. Cut through the corner and through the woods, across the river stream and over the hill, you will do it all. In fact, on many tracks you MUST use the "shortcuts" just have a CHANCE competing against higher-level AI.

The AI are randomly generated vehicles in the allowed class that have the name "BotRacer". As they are random and with randomly amount of upgrades, they can either be pretty good (and outrace you) or be a complete flop. There is no way to tell how they will perform against you.

The 15 tracks vary from very short 4-point star pattern in Laguna del Sol to extremely long and twisty tropical island to snow-bound Antartic to freeway construction zone. While the terrain is varied, and rather entertaininig, after a while it really gets boring.

While the vehicles can be tweaked, many of the advanced tweaking options require part upgrades, such as brake bias controller, rack and pinion gearset for transmission, even race-grade adjustable shocks. All require some hefty upgrade fees.What's worse, used parts cannot be sold separately, and must be sold with the entire vehicle. It is also not possible to transfer parts from one vehicle to another, which can be frustrating as you DO lose money due to vehicle's depreciation.

All in all, 4x4 Evo is a solid racing title that has a learning curve that ramps up dramatically as you near the end. However, with lots of vehicles, lots of parts, and 15 tracks to play with, it should be a while before you get bored.

Windows · by Kasey Chang (4598) · 2005

Trivia

Crazy 2000 Track

The Crazy 2000 track is not unique to 4x4 Evolution. A version of this same figure 8 appeared in Monster Truck Madness and Monster Truck Madness 2.

Monster Truck Madness 2 Tracks

It turns out that most tracks in Monster Truck Madness 2 can be used in 4x4 Evolution, though some require minor editing.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2000 – Special Award for Cross-Platform

Additional information contributed by Kasey Chang

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by quizzley7.

Macintosh added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: Indra was here, Patrick Bregger, Rwolf.

Game added August 5, 2001. Last modified March 24, 2024.