2002 · Electronic Arts · Racing

Shox

PlayStation exclusive

Shox is an arcade racing game featuring licensed rally cars competing across offroad courses in three locations: Arctic Tundra, Arid Desert, and Asian Jungle. The single-player league mode consists of four progressively difficult leagues with six races each, requiring first-place average standings to advance.

Released: 12 November 2002
Platforms: PlayStation 2
Genres: Racing
Developers: Electronic Arts
Publishers: Electronic Arts
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Country: United Kingdom

About

Shox (also known as Shox: Rally Reinvented) is an arcade rally racing video game developed by EA UK and published by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports BIG label in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 2 in fall of 2002. Shox features 24 licensed vehicles from real-life makers like Audi, Mini, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Lancia, and Ford. The game introduced a unique concept, "Shox Zones". Within each track there are specially designated areas, or "Shox Zones" where players are awarded Bronze, Silver, and Gold placements based on their driving skills.

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Shox: Rally Reinvented features three environments where all tracks are based upon: Arid (a desert-like, sandy environment), Jungle (a densely vegetated, muddy environment), and Ice (an arctic, snowy and icy environment). In every track, there are three "Shox Zones", areas the player must cross while being timed. When the player reaches the end of a Shox Zone, the player is rewarded with cash based on the time taken to cross it, divided into Gold, Silver and Bronze. However, if the player takes too long to cross the zone, beyond the Bronze time, a reward will not be given.

Shox doesn't feature the genre's traditional gameplay modes. Instead of time trial, single race, and career modes, Shox has only one: the championship mode where players take one of 24 cars through 30 different races that are spread across five unique leagues. Shox features licensed rally cars, ranging from the Subaru Impreza WRC, Porsche Cayenne Turbo and Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, which all feature visual damage and dirt from the tracks. The handling is very arcade oriented.

Development

Electronic Arts announced that an off-road rally car racer was in development for the PlayStation 2 at E3 2002. The game was developed by EA UK studio. Development reportedly took only eight months as the GameCube version was eventually scrapped in favor of a holiday season release. The game used the game engine from F1 2002. Described as a cross between Rally Cross and Ridge Racer, Shox is part of the EA Sports BIG lineup, which targeted casual gamers with slick presentation and over-the-top arcade-style gameplay.

In Japan, the game was released under the name Rally Shox (ラリーショックス, Rarī Shokkusu) and was released on January 9, 2003. This version was published by Electronic Arts Square under the EA Games label instead of the EA Sports BIG label.

Reception

The game received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Famitsu gave it a score of 30 out of 40. GamePro said of the game, "Groan if you must, but Shox... rocks."