Developer: Milestone
Publisher: Milestone
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch
Tested on: PS4
Monster Energy Supercross: The Official Videogame – Review
Monster Energy Supercross lets you play the motor races of the supercross tournament of 2017, using the real tracks and riders from the actual cup! The tracks have been converted to the digital realm with an astounding amount of detail, great physics and amazing graphics. This game has been developed and published by Milestone S.r.l., a renowned race-game developer with lots of experience in motor sports and motorcross games.
Story
In this game you’ll be able to play the Monster Energy Supercross tournament of 2017. The actual tracks of the 450SX class championship and both the 250SX East & West championships are all available in the game, and so are the 36 riders, 6 teams and their sponsors, and the bikes plus their components (real-life brands!).
You’ll be able to play any course, but there’s also a career mode where you’ll work yourself up through the ranks. You’ll be able to race just the tournament track, or even the qualification rounds. Working through the qualification will earn you a better starting position, so that’s quite useful!
Graphics
The graphics look absolutely great! The details are so perfect, and the stadiums really look like you are watching real life images of the races, down to the weather effects on the lens. Only the racers themselves don’t get very dirty during the race.
You can choose between first person and third person viewpoint. First person is a more realistic experience, but is also a lot more difficult since you can’t really see what’s happening around you.
Sound
The sounds are good, but the roar of the motorcycle when it’s in the air sounds rather monotonous after a while, but after a few races you’ll filter it out and won’t notice anymore.
It’s cool that before each race you’ll get a nice introduction of the stadium, with the voice of the announcer, fireworks and cheering, however you’ll most likely skip it after the third race or so.
Gameplay
Supercross is a variant on motorcross, driving motercycles build for jumps and maneuverability on muddy and hilly tracks. Supercross means those tracks aren’t on huge lots of land, but instead build right inside a stadium by dumping a lot of mud in it and creating really challenging curvy and bendy tracks.
You can imagine that if you’ll want to race on a track like that, you’ll need some expert steering capabilities, know what a bike does with wildly different types of mud under your wheels, and be not only good at jumping, but also at landing. Well, that’s what this racing game is all about.
You can race in either multiplayer mode against other players (plus AI), or single player versus AI. In single player mode there are many different game modes. You can play a single race where you can choose between many riders and tracks (or use your own), play career mode and work your way up, try to be as fast as possible with time attack, or play through the whole championship. In career mode you’ll start at the 250sx championship, and proceed to the 450 class.
In career mode you’ll be able to customize your bike with the parts available to you for the credits you win in the game, and the sponsors you’ll unlock. These parts change the base stats of your bike in various ways, increasing speed, handing, braking strength, etc. There are also many cosmetic customizations of both the bike and the rider available.
There are so many options in this game! First of all, the difficulty is not just decided by how good your opponent AI is, but also by the setting of the physics and what you can control during the race. You’ll be able to choose how the rider distributes his weight, change gear manually, length of the race, etc. You’ll also be able to customize your bike even further before the race.
Realistic physics make the game a lot more challenging, and makes you fall a lot more often. During a jump you’ll be able to control the bike in the air to land properly, and you’ll even be able to control the weight distribution of the rider if you have enabled it. Landing properly after a jump gets much more important with normal physics, and the collisions with your opponents will have much more impact. Racing through wet mud or loose dirt really feels different in this game, and makes you bike react very differently in sharp corners. The other racers also have an effect on the track by displacing mud and even the hay bales at the sides, which is visually rather cool to see, and sometimes challenging to overcome.
The game is pretty unforgiving if you get off-track, since the tracks are very close to each other and there’s not much room to wander. A few seconds just outside of the track is possible, provided you return quickly. If you stay more than a few seconds, you’ll be reset back on the track, stationary, and will lose quite a lot of time. At the beginning this will happen a lot, and it can be a bit frustrating since you feel like you’re just like half a meter outside of the track and it’s easy to just ride a bit further and get back on the track. Luckily, there’s a rewind option you can activate, which enables you to go a few seconds back in the race and correct stupid mistakes or moves you’ve made. You’ll be able to replay the part you rewound and do it correctly, so you’ll get a better time in the race and can immediately correct mistakes. If you are inexperienced with these kind of games you’ll most likely use this feature very often in the beginning, as you are getting used to the game but don’t want to be demotivated by finishing way later than the AI players. If you get the hang of the game and finish a race without too much dumb mistakes, you’ll be able to switch this feature off. Each feature which increases difficulty (weather type, real physics vs assisted, controllable weight distribution vs automatic, separate breaks vs simultaneous, AI difficulty) will earn you more points for a race.
After a bunch of races you’ve experienced all 17 different tracks at least once, but fret not: there’s a custom track builder in this game. You’ll be able to upload your design to make it available for all players of the game, and download the designs of other players. This editor really adds extra content and replayability to the game.
Conclusion
Monster Energy Supercross is an awesome and challenging racing game, with gorgeous graphics, very good physics and many options which makes this game fun for both total beginners as for people who play these kind of games often. The track editor is a great addition which gives you endless variability in your races. Supercross is a fun type of race for a game since the tricky jumps and sharp corners are a real challenge to overcome, especially with the many different consistencies of the mud you’ll be racing through!
Monster Energy Supercross: The Official Videogame - Review,
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