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There are a lot of factors that have to be considered when writing a review, believe it or not. There is not only the obligation to get the details of the game right, but also to judge a game on its own merits. This is surprisingly difficult sometimes. As an example, I find walking simulator games boring, so would have to internally fight to not tend towards a low mark.
What this torrent of words is leading up to is this: I don’t personally like motorbikes or motorbike games. So on paper at least I am the least qualified person in the world to write about Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 6.
However, I’m always up for a challenge and am happy to be proven wrong. Can this win me over? Or am I going back to being the full time Forza Horizon 5 correspondent?
Let’s kick off with the narrative, and in common with many racing games, there isn’t really much of a one to be found. Starting out at the bottom, in a traditional style, we have to race our little hearts out to become champion of the world or something. Basically what this means is that we begin in a lower tier, with low expectations of us. As we progress, new leagues open up and better sponsorship offers are put on the table. As long as we can keep winning, that is!
Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 6 does all look very nice. The bike models are neat and the character creator allowed me to create a rider that looked like Gollum with hair in a few button presses. So that is working perfectly. The tracks look epic when you are driving around them too; all banked turns and big jumps, alongside some hairpins and so on. I must say, the flyby of the track while the race is being sorted, with fireworks and all, looks great.
However, one thing I do find odd is that all the riders are the same size when they are on the bike. My Gollum is quite short and squat, yet when on the bike they are the same size as all the other racers; tall and willowy. It’s a bit strange really. There are some nice graphical touches to enjoy in Monster Energy 6 too, such as when you are racing in the rain, your rider will wipe their goggles every now and then so they can see where they are going. It’s all evidence of the care that Milestone have put in.
That said, the sound is very much a game of two halves – the voice overs of the commentators and the bloke who trains you are done very well, but every bike sounds like a bumblebee stuck in a baked bean tin. After five laps, the drone does start to get to you. The music is nice, however, and all in all, I can’t complain too much.
Now we come onto the meat of the game, the way that it handles and the way that races play out. At the top, I should say that the real life sport of Supercross is probably very hard, and I have no doubt that I wouldn’t even last a lap. However, the idea of a videogame is to take the very difficult and dangerous and make it more accessible, isn’t it? Well, fortunately, the programmers over at Milestone have been fairly successful by and large. There are things that make me want to chew my pad (and the wife told me off this morning for swearing at the telly, which is never a good sign), but overall it does work. Let me explain what I’m trying to get across.
To me, riding a motorbike is a bit like rubbing your head and patting your tummy at the same time. Put me on a push bike and I’m as happy as Larry, but when I have ridden motorbikes it has gone fairly well until I need to brake or turn. Or heaven forbid, brake AND turn. And the same is true here, so it must be a good simulation, no? Riding in a straight line is pretty straightforward in Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 6, yet turning is a lot more problematic as the more the bike leans, the more chance there is of falling off.
Braking doesn’t seem to help, and applying power too soon sees your bike kick into a lovely drift, which gets wider the more power you add. There is a real delicate balancing act between brake and throttle that is needed to corner successfully; figuring that sweet spot out is not the work of moments. It took me a good few tries to finally be able to get around a track without falling off. I have to say, it felt good when the controls clicked.
Avoiding falling off is a good thing, as your rider can pick up injuries when they hit the deck, which then reduces their performance in the subsequent races. Just as an aside, when I looked at the injuries my girl had picked up, the wife looked over my shoulder and proclaimed that she should be in hospital, not riding a bike. She used to be a nurse, so knows her stuff. Just because I had whiplash, a dislocated elbow and shoulder and damage to both knees wasn’t going to stop me riding! Weirdly, the only way to recover faster is not, as you might think, a long lie down, but to take part in a workout session in the free roam area. Completing objectives in the workout will shorten the healing time quite a lot.
Content wise Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 6 has got you covered. There is the standard Career mode, where you attempt to become the best around, there is some online racing which works well and seems to be well populated, and there is the aforementioned free roam location – the Supercross Park – where there are a number of missions to try out. This is in addition to a Supercross school for those of you who don’t know your scrub from your whip (I’m talking about myself, here) and so there is no shortage of things to have a go at.
What didn’t I like? Apart from the fact that the main vehicles have two few wheels and a nasty habit of throwing me over the handlebars? I’d say the main issue is in the way the corners are policed. Picture the scene, if you will – you come sailing off a jump in slightly the wrong direction (almost unheard of, I know) and you land in such a way that you cut the corner a little. Oh no you don’t says the game, and you are reset back before the corner, at a dead standstill, while all the other riders stream by and leave you literally in their dust. If you try to cut inside another rider on a turn, it usually results in a reset as well, and this made me a little sad.
Other than that, I’m not a fan of how the engine power gets dialled right back should you even consider going near track limits, nor how an instant reset occurs should you hit a marshall. For all that, the funniest thing I saw in my time with Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 6 is an attempt at a jump seeing me landing with my back wheel on another rider’s helmet, bouncing off as we both continued on our merry way. That is some serious upper body strength!
Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 6 isn’t good enough to convert me to a world of two wheels, but for fans of the franchise… The fact that all the bikes, riders and tracks those fans need are present, will be a big plus; helped along by our trainer being Jeremy McGrath.
At the end of the day though, Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 6 is a more than competent racer, with its own unique challenges that make it a real test.