I hate horses. It's true - they're the bane of my collection of otherwise loving animals. Livestock are always nice, despite the fact that they know, in a few months, or a few years maybe, they're going to get eaten. Yet horses, cocky horses, that don't get eaten - by normal people at least - seem to always have the face on. Their brown leathery skin, rough to the touch; their eyes, eviler and more offensive than perhaps Kanye West and 50 Cent combined. The horse's face is home to large, raised veins, which add to the fear factor; unattractive creatures with a head that houses a brain capable of murder, their deadly crush is capable of killing or severely injuring any man on God's earth. It's not a one-way thing though; those horses hate me too. I only have to get within their radius of wrath and they start backing up on their two hind legs, flashing at me and warding me off with their front large deadly hooves, along with their frighteningly loud war cry.

G1 Jockey 4 then could be my way to get virtual revenge on those horses that I detest so. I'll keep my finger on the whip button - that'll teach them! But G1 Jockey 4 has lots of RPG elements that keep riders off the horse and on the strategy side of things. Good news for horse haters like me, but those who want to get in and race will have to put up with training beforehand. You have to undergo things such as horse training, and you, the jockey, have to go earn trust with the horses and the stable owners. In G1 Jockey 4 you can also keep and rear your own horse, train him and bump up his attributes to serve your ultimate purpose. If you want to participate in the steeplechase races, which are also a new addition to G1 Jockey 4, then make sure your horse is good at jumping. Unless, of course, you want your horse to crash into jumps - but I don't know anyone that sick!

When you do get on the track, there are a few things to keep in mind. First of all, make sure you're on easy mode - newcomers won't stand a chance on any other difficulty, that's for sure. However, easy mode feels unrealistic when you put it next to normal mode, as it deprives the player of things such as being able to fall off your horse. Okay, so that's a good thing in real life - a reason I'd never get on a horse, because that's secretly what I'm afraid of most - but I'd have rather had the realism on easy mode, with the AI difficulty toned down. I suppose the realism doesn't matter to the casual gamer, but I wouldn't have thought that this game would appeal to the casual gamer, not with its long-winded training steeples in place to jump over.

The controls are quite hard to grasp. You have to double tab back and forth on the D-Pad and then control the direction of the horse with one of the thumbsticks. There are other methods of control, but this looks like the simplest one here. You can always get off to a good start with your horse, tapping the back and forward directions on the D-Pad, but when you get further afield, your thumb starts to fatigue and you suddenly find yourself at the back of the crowd, getting whipped by jockeys passing you, jockeys who clearly have stronger thumbs than I.

Graphically the game looks like it's fresh out of the arcade - which is either a very good thing, or a very bad thing. I'm inclined to sit on the fence here. G1 Jockey is an arcade game through and through, but its new RPG elements and the horse rearing features make it more into a home console game and less of an arcade game. I would have expected some smoother graphics, less blockier textures and greener racing tracks as a result - however, instead, I would say that we're simply treated to the G1 Jockey 3 graphics engine. The menu interface is a little basic for my liking too. The sound is akin to the graphics when you bring the arcade versus home console argument into it. Gallops and whip sounds are the best you're going to hear in the actual races, and funky annoying Japanese techno tunes grace the menus and post game screens. Nothing to ride home about!

The arcade argument is an interesting one. G1 Jockey would suit one of those arcade horse machines more than a PS2 controller does; you know the controller I'm talking about, the simulation of a horse saddle that rocks with you. On a home console it's just not that much fun to ride the horses, and I feel that a much better racing implementation could drastically improve this game, something fresh and new, a system where multitasking is key, but it's not all overly confusing - maybe similar to flying games. As it stands, the racing side of G1 Jockey 4 is a button tapping fest and the RPG side of things is all done in the menus and feels dull. Fans might lap up another serving of horse, but newcomers aren't welcome, not until this franchise gets a complete overhaul and a brand new pair of horseshoes.

(Note: Buying this game from online retailers such as Game.net gets you a special attachment which goes on top of both analogue sticks to join them on the same axis, to presumably make them move more precisely in conjunction. While one of these attachments wasn't available for this review, I tried to simulate what the attachment might do with extreme thumb precision, but to no avail. Either the attachment isn't as revolutionary as it claims, or you really do need it to fully enjoy the game. I doubt the latter is true however, otherwise buying this game from other shops without the attachment would be a complete waste of time, now wouldn't it?)

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).