It’s difficult to create a hit game. It’s more difficult still to parlay a hit game into a maintainable franchise. Most difficult of all, naturally, is doing so with a niche market. Attempting to do so while transitioning to a new platform doesn’t help matters much, and that’s sort of the dilemma Climax Studios find themselves facing with ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin’ Trails.

The primary problem, naturally – and one I can fairly easily envision other PSP developers encountering – is in how to convince the market to shell out $50 for a portable version of a game that’s been around the block a few times on one console or another.

Of course, sometimes that’s the least of one’s worries, and this is true of Blazin’ Trails. Most of the features from ATV Offroad Fury 3 found their way into ATV: BT, and there’s even some nifty extras, like music videos for some of the featured artists, and trading cards (which can unlock special features) that can be collected and swapped or wagered in online matches. In other words, from the perspective of someone just looking for a portable version of a favorite game, Blazin’ Trails would stack up pretty well at first glance.

Unfortunately, it’s not a terribly comfortable game to play. The PlayStation Portable features two fewer shoulder buttons and one fewer analog stick than does the PlayStation 2, and the controls didn’t fare very well in the dumbing-down. I guess the best way to describe the sensation is this: when I’m playing a portable game, I want something that can hold my attention for an hour or two, generally while I’m traveling or waiting (say for the train or an appointment). As a result, the game needs to have controls such that I can play comfortably for that period of time.

With ATV: Blazin’ Trails, my hands consistently cramped up within about 20 minutes of playing, giving it the dubious honor of being the only PSP game so far to cramp them at all, let alone inside half an hour.

The upshot is that the increased difficulty in handling is probably going to affect most people, so when you jump online to get involved in one of the four-player Infrastructure races, you’re not going to be terribly disadvantaged, comparatively speaking. To be fair, the online play is remarkably solid. This is one area of the game that Climax absolutely nailed.

Even with that, though, Climax managed to exacerbate the problem by getting much harsher with the physics model in the transition from PS2 to PSP. So not only are you going to have more difficulty in controlling your ATV in the first place, but when you inevitably do something like land imperfectly, you’re going to pay the price. Repeatedly.

And just in case that horse isn’t quite dead, the game’s graphics really don’t meet even launch-level expectations for the PSP. It more closely resembles PSone level visuals than PS2, and despite the reduction from six-player online races in ATV Offroad Fury 3 to four in Blazin’ Trails, the framerate still leaves a ton to be desired. Sadly, this can’t even be blamed solely on online play, as it crops up in single-player, too.

Aurally, the music is pretty good, but there’s one tiny drawback: the whine of the quad washes it out. Granted, one can make a realism argument there, but why bother with licensed music if the only time the user ever gets to hear it is in the menu screen? That just seems like time that could have been spent making the controls more user-friendly, or tightening up that framerate.

I’m not going to say Blazin’ Trails sucks, because there is a diamond here, even if you have to crunch a few hundred pounds of coal to get to it. If you’ve never played the ATV: Offroad Fury titles, and you’re looking for some four-wheeled fun on your shiny new PSP, then Blazin’ Trails is worth renting.