There is an absolute glut of quality racing games cluttering our shelves and hard drives nowadays. For gamers this is a really good problem to have. For Motocross Madness it kind of isn’t.
There isn’t anything inherently wrong with the game, in fact it’s pretty swell; however, there isn’t anything that really stands out about it that would make me suggest picking this up rather than something else.
Following similar territory to every other racing game that has come out in recent memory, you start out with an easy race and as you progress you will be given the option to use prize money to purchase upgrades for your bike and avatar that you also have to unlock by racing. What we end up with is a game that makes a lot of safe choices and never has the ambition to stand out from the pack.
When you take a look at the various race types and unlockables, you are left wondering if you really should continue playing or not after a race or two. The tracks are as lifeless and boring as the gameplay: the leveling up and upgrade system is just the default standard we are used to in sports games.
The only real issue that you’ll have is trying to navigate a course for the first time. There are some decent sized ramps and drops, but placement and intensity is unusual. More broadly, the tracks are littered with problems. Sometimes you are faced with multiple paths to get around the tracks, which is normally a good thing; however, you can never tell where an actual path is and where out of bounds begins unless you’ve raced the track before. You often do not have any indication that you aren’t going the right way. This is an issue I don’t even have with open world racers, yet many times here I would get lost. Many times I would find myself alone, unable to figure out where the heck I was headed only to crash into a crowd. Interestingly enough, the spectators will not react to you even if you plow right into them.
Motocross Madness isn’t a bad game. The graphics are fine, the controls work, and it’s decent fun. The game just suffers by showing up late to a crowded party, wearing the same dress as everyone else and forgetting to accessorize. Consequently, it just can’t pull off the ensemble as well as the others.
A code for Motocross Madness was provided to The Married Gamers for review.
