Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 3 Review

Quite the mouthful when it comes to the title so for the sake of wordcount I'm just going to call it Supercross, cool name anyway. I'm not used to motorbike games in all honesty, I remember playing the demo for MX VS ATV on the PS2 years ago and that was a bunch of fun so when I got invited to review this I thought I'd try something new, love racing games so it only makes sense for me to be familiar with all aspects. One thing that racing games like this tend to do is bombard you with tutorials so what I really appreciated was it actually asking if you wanted to try the tutorial, naturally in my circumstance I opted in for tutorials but there are definitely veterans that need no advice and training but the thing I noticed about the tutorials is that it mainly just explains how to make good use of the clutch at the start of the race, everything after that and you're on your own so because I'm used to cars it took me a bit to get going but when I did oh boy did it feel good.

You begin the game with the character customisation, which is really good, especially when the whole point of the game is to become your own champion, choose your colours, your brand of bike and your number and you're good to go. You'll probably spend a bit of time in this section but that's good, its just the right amount of customisation. So, with your player made, bike chosen, number set its time to get started. Now again, I've never played a bike focused game on the current generation and last so when the race started, all of us piled right next to each other I was familiar with that since I play the F1 games but what I didn't take into consideration is that I need to move my weight around the bike depending on the corner so where I tried to take the hairpin left, I ended up going straight through the barriers, off my bike looking like a complete idiot in the process. Progress my friends, progress. However, I did find that the learning curve can take quite a while and it can take the fun out of the game unless you are willing to power through, which isn't an issue for me but for a lot of people it would be an issue. You have moments where your momentum takes you flying into the lead or you are packed around your opponents that knock you off, the slightest setback and that's your race over and done with, which again can take away the fun but then again you don't play these types of games for an easy time.

As I was racing around, I had a look around the level and the details of the tracks are really memorising, the details of the stadium, the dirt and the graphics in general are really good. Which makes this all the better that the developers didn't just focus on the graphics because not only is the audio nice and crisp but the game has a lot of content, which in todays time can be something overlooked. The career has three different sides. The 250 West takes you around numerous tracks in the western states of the USA. Then the 250 East. Then finally, there's the 450, and that has races from all over the US. The 250 and 450 numbers relate to the engine-size, and when I tried out the 450cc bikes, everything felt a little harder, faster and it was easier to fall off. It can become a bit repetitive but at the same time, the thrill of being wheel to wheel on a tight track with everyone else takes away the feeling of repetitiveness and can make the time fly by. So, you have the career mode, where I spent the majority of my time but there are also a few multiplayer modes, which gives the game a lot of additional playtime if you're looking to race against friends and other players online. There are your normal single races, but also a few mini-games including a treasure hunt where you head to various locations. Then there's a mode with checkpoints and also a knockout game, which all add a lot of hours of gameplay.

So, to sum it all up shortly. Definitely a much more fun experience than what I was expecting, especially for someone taking on a motocross game for the first time. This definitely won't be everyone's cup of tea; you need patience and the willingness to fail and try again and because I'm still traumatised from Dirt Rally 2.0, I'm more than familiar with failing and learning. The asking price is a bit steep when it comes to the game so I would recommend picking this up when it's on sale.