There was a time, a few years back, when it appeared like off-road motorcycle racing games were (if you’ll pardon the pun) on the right track.
And then, just like that, everything seemed to go wrong, and we’ve had an uphill battle ever since.
Sadly, Monster Energy Supercross doesn’t manage to get itself out of that mire. With that said, there are a lot of things that Monster Energy Supercross does right.
First off, it shifts its attention to the US Supercross circuit, which is a refreshing change. The 17 tracks are beautifully recreated down to the smallest detail, engendering the scope and grandeur that the US likes to inject into their sporting events.
Besides, the audio is tremendous, and the bikes and riders on track look wonderful. Another step in the right direction is the fact that the controls have improved over those of Milestone’s last off-road racer, MXGP3.
They’re not great, mind you, but they’re at least competent enough to allow for the player to not feel like they’re wrestling the bike at every turn.
Playing the game is far easier… or at least it would be, if it wasn’t for the physics. In the world of Monster Energy Supercross, Isaac Newton is spinning in his grave. The physics engine seems to have some kind of random encounter system, and you will find similar events having different effects from time to time.
Tweaking the bikes just makes things worse. How your bike is going to react to the world is a wholly unpredictable affair, making getting things right feel like a victory. Which it shouldn’t really, because a good player will want to be able to predict the results of their actions, not wait for some weird random event to occur.
This really messes with the overall feel of the game, which could have been extremely exciting, had the player had the chance to better predict what their bike was going to do when its tyres got back on the ground after a jump.
To add to the frustration of this, Monster Energy Supercross takes ages to load. Even short races can tip the scales at over five minutes, which would be laughable if it wasn’t so painful. Add to that the fact that virtually every gate drop and hole shot we went through had frame rate issues, and things go from bad to worse.
Winning a race can be a real chore in Monster Energy Supercross, so the lack of fanfare when you do manage to get the chequered flag will know the wind out of your sails. And then you get treated to seeing the faces of the races, which is somewhere between a freak-show and a horror.
Simply put, Monster Energy Supercross comes close, but no cigar; there is still a lot that needs to be done in this genre for the racing to feel anywhere near authentic. You could call it an arcade racer, but the physics model is still something that would frustrate even the most casual of gamers.
And that is particularly sad because Monster Energy Supercross takes a number of steps in the right direction, even if they are shuffling, little steps. But as things stand, Milestone need to revisit a number of drawing boards.
No game should take this long to load, for example, given the power of modern hardware, and frame rate issues on a console like a PS4 Pro or Xbox One X simply shouldn’t exist.
Monster Energy Supercross needs a ton of very strong polish – great graphics aren’t enough.
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