Risking your neck, virtual style

Describing snowboarding and ATV racing as extreme sports is just another way of saying: "Risking one's neck in pursuit of fun." Anyone who has tried racing an ATV (that's all terrain vehicle, or quad bike, to folk in the UK) will know how difficult they are to control. Because there's no differential in the rear axle they don't like turning corners. The best way to drive an ATV is to slide it round and that's far from easy.

Not that you'd know it from a quick go on Sony's latest racing game for PlayStation 2. ATV Offroad Fury is an arcade title full of larger-than-life jumps, speedy quads and challenging courses.

Only the bone-crunching crashes are a realistic representation of what happens to ATV racing novices. At least if you get it wrong and take out another rider or, worse still, bail out over a cliff, you won't be spending months in traction for one momentary lapse of concentration.

As I've said, racing an ATV requires a different technique to just about every other kind of motor sport.

It's much the same story in ATV Offroad Fury. Simply turning up at the start, choosing the best quad and slavishly following the racing line will see you finishing last every time.

Success in this game is all about the terrain. You have to use the jumps to your advantage, attacking the humps on a straight will see your ATV soaring high above lesser opponents and catching up the leaders.

Get it wrong and hit a jump too hard before a corner and you'll be chewing the Armco barrier while your opponents disappear over the horizon.

In the interests of arcade action, though, the programmers do allow plenty of time for catching up and even a newcomer will find their ATV still in contention by the last lap.

Of course, since Gran Turismo took racing games to new levels of technicality, no self-respecting motoring title can get away with a straightforward race and nothing else. ATV Offroad Fury allows you to tweak your quad for individual circuits. Shocks, damping, gear ratios and steering can all be tuned from the elegant on-screen menu system.

It's an interesting way to spend some time but I'm not convinced the changes make such a huge difference where it counts - on the circuits.

The power of PlayStation 2 allows for the inclusion of totally free roaming terrain. If you get sick of racing, you can take off into the woods or see what's over the horizon. Older racing games put invisible barriers on the track to stop you exploring because the original PS One didn't have the processing muscle to create a full-scale virtual world.

One interesting feature Sony choose to include is the map editor which allows you to create new tracks giving the game near infinite replay ability. Unfortunately, the editor isn't available in the single player game, an odd exclusion, but it does allow you to create fiendish new tracks on which to thrash your mates.

And when you do get the hang of winning races, it's fun to perform tricks on your ATV quad bike on your final lap.

ATV Offroad Fury is a refreshing throwback to the days when racing games didn't need a degree in mechanical engineering to enjoy them.

THE Game Boy Advance may be winning all the plaudits from games writers at the moment but there's still some good stuff coming out on the Game Boy Colour.

Aliens: The Thanatos Encounter is an exciting top down shoot 'em up that casts you in the role of a space marine cleaning up a freighter filled with alien spawn. It reminded me of Loaded, the popular shooter that appeared for the PlayStation a few years ago and led to an equally enjoyable sequel, Re-Loaded.

The graphics are clear and the pace is frantic. Don't spend too long in one place or you'll be swamped.

Action Man: Search for Base X is a more traditional platformer for the Game Boy. You must track down the evil Doctor X before he can finish building a doomsday gun.

It's pretty silly stuff and the graphics aren't as clean nor as detailed as the Aliens title.

Both titles published by THQ. Format: Game Boy cart. Price: £24.99 each.

GIZMO OF THE WEEK

IT only seems like yesterday that my dad brought home our first video recorder. I'd paid for it with money from my paper round (a whopping £380). It was an ITT model - in reality a rebadged JVC recorder - about the size of a washing-up bowl with a top loader for cassettes and buttons for playback and record. But what technology! Now I could tape those episodes of Minder and The Professionals I wanted to keep (within reason, each tape cost £10).

The world's most popular video format, VHS, celebrates its silver jubilee this year. Recorders took a few years to arrive in Britain but, when they did, VHS changed the way we watched telly. The format was technically inferior to both its rivals, Sony's Betamax and the Philips/Grundig V2000, but it saw them off with the help of rental companies like Granada.

A quarter of a century later and we are finally turning our attention to something new. Philips will be first to the shops with a DVD recorder this autumn. Costing £1,500, the DVDR 1000 is the first of a new breed of machines that record to disc. Video tape degrades. The average movie stored on tape will last for 15 years or 500 passes through a video deck before it becomes unstable. Cheaper tapes can go bad within five years.

Recordable DVDs should outlast you (they have a life of at least 100 years) provided they are looked after. The DVDR 1000 is the future and costs will come down over the next few years.