A lot of what makes playing video games so darned interesting is being able to live out impossible dreams. Want to be a slayer of dragons? Gotcha covered. Always wished you could be a stealth master? Problem solved. Dream of taking Scunthorpe to the Premier League trophy? Done deal, you crazy fool. But what about launching yourself off dirt ramps on a motocross or quad bike? Is that something you’ve always wanted to do? Well, you may be in luck; MX vs ATV has returned from beyond the grave to let you fall awkwardly onto another rider with none of the crutches and casts required.
This may be the fifth entry in the near-ten-year-old series (with a fair few spin-offs), but it’s the first since the demise of former publisher, THQ. Now being overseen by Nordic Games, the original developer, Rainbow Studios, has come through a maelstrom of drama. From being shuttered by THQ, having this series effectively canned, and having to push back the release date, until finally it arrives relatively unscathed if a tad predictable.
If you aren’t all that familiar with motocross (or indeed supercross), it’s fundamentally about racing around a dirt track on a motorbike or ATV against other riders, all the while trying to navigate a variety of ramps and bumps. To this end, Supercross delivers a fine representation of the sport, right down to the thrum of the engines and flashbulbs in the crowd. It even has a boatload of authentic motocross companies and wide selection of riders to enhance the authenticity of your experience. Overall, the level of detail is impressive.
Content wise, Supercross maintains the career mode of past entries, spanning 17 tracks and five different classes. Then there is a wonderfully chaotic 12-player online mode (which is already struggling to fill 12 spots for a race) that follows the same path as the main game, and a free ride mode for mucking about with stunts and jumps. On top of that, as you go through career mode, you unlock various bits and bobs for your rider and bike/quad so you can tinker, customise and tweak performance; it’s not that in-depth, but a nice little addition to the meat of the game nonetheless.
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So it’s certainly a good chunk of racing, but if you aren’t entirely invested in the sport, the 17 tracks, with their long laps, will feel like ever so slightly different variants of the same muddy, brown hills before too long. I’d imagine it will be less of an issue for motocross enthusiasts, but the average racing game fan would probably pine for something that was more of an arcade feel.
It’s a source material problem rather than a game design one though. Being grounded in realism means each track cannot really stray thematically from those browner than brown dirt ramps and dark-ceilinged arenas of the real world. While MX vs ATV isn’t the best looking game you’ll see, it does provide a consistent, if rather plain, visual style throughout, so naturally, the riding needs to hold up if Supercross wants to keep the attention of its audience beyond the opening lap.
The gameplay strikes a balance between fiddly realism and fun arcade style. Turning and braking is forgiving, yet navigating ramps and bumps requires attentive levelling out of your vehicle to get the best distance and maintain your speed. It turns what could be a dull, forgettable procession into an enjoyable balancing act of timing vs speed. Throw in the stunts to show off your riding skills and you’ve got a pretty solid gameplay core to push through the unavoidably humdrum nature of the source material. It’s not perfect of course, and while it plays well, it doesn’t excite all that much and isn’t quite impactful enough to detract from the earlier complaint about the repetitive nature of the tracks.
In addition, it pains me to have to point out that some of the animation is altogether substandard. Crashing, for example, could have been a silly, mean-hearted joy of twisted limbs. Instead, we have a rather limp pratfall in its place, made worse by the general lack of carnage when you impact another rider. You just simply bounce off with nary a scuff on any rider, while the turning animation seems a tad rigid for both vehicle types too. For all the effort that went into making the right noises and grabbing all the licensing, it is a genuine shame that these details in movement were left undercooked.
MX vs ATV Supercross feels like the interim game in the series. After all Rainbow Studios has gone through, it’s a minor miracle they managed to get this out at all, yet you can’t help but feel this is entry is their way of putting the past behind them before they move onto an inevitable sequel on more powerful hardware.