Above: "Hey - I can see my house from here!" We still love Hot Shots
The gameplay – at least in the mode we tried – is focused on tricks. Landing tricks successfully will fill your boost bar a little. To begin with, at the start of each race, tricks are only accessible through the X button (that's A on 360), combined with a direction. Normal tricks like this can be tweaked with L1 to get you more score and boost. Do a few of these and your boost bar will start to fill up.
Above: Fill the boost bar to unlock different tricks as you race
Of course, you can use this boost to gain speed and take a few places, but if you save it, you'll unlock the next trick button: circle. These tricks take a little longer and are less forgiving to land, but they look better and reward you with more boost if you pull them off. Triangle tricks come next, before special tricks are unlocked with a full boost bar. These involve pressing both shoulder buttons together with a direction and are where the biggest rewards are.
The game becomes not only a test of your reflexes, but your patience too. Are you greedy and hold your tricks for too long? A snatched tweak at the last moment can result in a nasty fall. Fortunately, the game is currently very forgiving, with swift bike resets after falls. This is particularly useful when racing near rivals, as most impacts between quads will end in you falling off. Sometimes this happens without warning as another racer takes a different line and slams into you, but we suppose it's unavoidable.
Above: Better than MotorStorm? It's certainly more forgiving and the tracks are less haphazard
Sadly, the emphasis on tricks has meant that there will be no handlebar view, as you wouldn't be able to see how far through each trick animation your rider is. We would love to see it featured in a race-only event as the sensation of speed and vertigo would undoubtedly be enhanced by a rider's-eye perspective. But we can understand why it's been omitted.
The main game will take place in World Tour mode, which we weren't shown but were told will take place over 10 tours, totalling 50 events in all. Seven real-world locations will be present, including Wyoming USA and Lake Garda in Italy. The latter is the best-looking of the tracks we've seen so far, with the lake stretching into the distance as we hit the jumps. And the blue skies make it look like a holiday destination.
Graphically, it does slightly fall shy of the variety and detail of Motorstorm, but it's certainly no slouch, with dense 3D grass covering the track surface, and those vertigo moments are genuinely exciting. We found ourselves noticeably stoked after playing it, although we were playing on a TV the size of a mattress.
It's amazing how much of a step-up the game is over the mediocre ATV games of recent years. And, while it's unclear how much longevity the game will have once you've mastered the tracks and tricks, it's looking like being a welcome entry into the extreme sport genre when it is released this autumn.
Above: If you think it looks fun, you're absolutely right. We'll be watching this one carefully