Developing licensed games annually, especially for sports titles, is a difficult task, a challenge that oscillates between creating innovations in so few months while preserving the good things done before. Added to this delicate balance of factors is the need to listen to the feedback of an extremely sensitive community, very demanding and loyal players who are willing to buy the game year after year.
One of the companies that knows the importance of all this is without a doubt Milestone, a company that handles many of the official licenses related to two wheels. We are talking about titles of the caliber of MotoGP, SBK, MXGP and obviously Monster Energy Supercross, which reached its sixth chapter this year, a notable achievement for a saga dedicated to the official supercross championship. The Milanese company has created a series capable of challenging the market even in our territory, where this discipline does not have many followers, but thanks to its good gameplay it manages to be appreciated even by those who do not know the name Jeremy McGrath.
In this Monster Energy Supercross review – The Official Videogame 6 We will tell you about our exploits on the official American supercross bikes, the news and how it is still fun to get dirty in the mud between races.
Learn from the best
In this chapter the aforementioned returns to a game, as a mentor. jeremy mcgrath, one of the legends of this sport with seven championships won, who among other things has already been the protagonist of a series of video games dedicated to him between the late 90s and early 2000s. The presence of the champion has pushed Hito to make him part comprehensive Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 6, offering improvements and a more enjoyable tutorial phase.
Supercross, in fact, requires a little more attention than classic two-wheeled games and the tutorial remains a fundamental part of calibrating the difficulty and the numerous driving aids that the title offers. For those who know the sport and have experienced the series in recent years it will be a formality, but they will still be able to appreciate the new balances introduced by Milestone, which seem improved and more incisive compared to the previous chapter.
Despite the new features, if we do not want to experience Monster Energy Supercross - The Official Videogame 6 as a challenge, but rather as a healthy diversion between one stunt and another, the game gives us the possibility of "automating" almost everything, offering it a more arcade experience, so you don't pay too much attention to how to balance your weight during a jump or the correct throttle level when entering a corner. While this choice may distort the complexities that Milestone has managed to integrate into the driving model, at the same time simplifying some aspects allows it to attract a broader audience and grant freedom and authentic fun to any new driver.
Numbers on the way
Being a game with an annual license, each chapter presents a list of drivers, tracks and bikes completely updated and in line with the current championship in progress. Milestone has done an enormous job rethinking all the supercross categories, from the two 250 displacements divided into West and East and the maximum category represented by the 450, as well as It faithfully reproduces the 17 tracks of the Monster Energy Supercross AMA, the 80 participating riders and the 29 motorcycles ready to plow through the mud.
The race is divided into three phases that gradually increase in difficulty. The first chapter immediately put us at the level of Futures, a mode inspired by the official invitational competitions between the best drivers in the world, where we test our driving skills and then present ourselves to the Supercross Academy, the tutorial itself of the game and finally introducing us to the Journal, a section that keeps track of our progress, from victories to tricks, performed on the track.
In this situation there is also the possibility to customize the pilot, with an increasingly wider range of options than the previous one; Modifications and possible improvements remain possible even advancing in the sample of promotion to the highest category, so there is no fear of being able to make changes later. Once this stage is over, you enter the heart of the experience, taking to the track in a dozen races in the 250 East category and as many in the 250 West. Once this phase has been completed, it is time to evaluate the offers on the market to choose who to apply to. professional championship, the last chapter that took us aboard the 450cc supercross bikes, with the desire and ambition to lift the world champion cup at the end of the season.
As with other titles such as SBK or MotoGP, the official championship alone, no matter how well created and identical to the real one, cannot be a sufficient content offering for the title to be a success. Between one season and another there are rarely innovations that override the rules or introduce new tracks and this would lead to practically identical titles each year, discouraging even the most loyal fans from purchasing them. This is where the creativity and talent of the development teams come into play, who can thus take on the challenge of creating methods capable of intriguing the public and keeping them glued to the product.
Everyone to the park!
The Milanese studio was not unprepared and brought to the new Monster Energy Supercross a more attractive experience within the supercross park where you can train freely in the different areas of the park to improve your skill tree, take a break from the stress of the championship and perfect your skills to avoid injury during the season.
The most significant innovation, however, is represented by rhythm attack, a one-on-one challenge on a long straight line characterized by bumps and jumps where the winner is the first to cross the finish line. At the moment there are only two playing fields, but it is easy to believe that Milestone will actively support this innovation in the coming months by integrating different scenarios.
To complete the offer we find the already known modes such as the Championship, where we can completely customize the season, the track editor where we can give space to our creativity and obviously the multiplayer sector where we can compete online, which from this chapter integrates the cross game
Be careful with your opponents
One of the problems What has also plagued previous chapters of Monster Energy Supercross is inherent to artificial intelligence. In fact, it is not uncommon to receive aggressive blows from opponents, but this gratuitous vehemence very often leads to hopelessly ruining our career, leaving us blamelessly with a grimace on our face and having to resort to rewinding.
If the work done in physics is palpable and the excellent improvements can be seen, unfortunately we cannot say the same aboutIA, which, although less impulsive, also does not find the right balance in this chapter. In fact, it is not uncommon to witness unrealistic time trials and AI-controlled opponents that ignore our position on the track and perform gravity-defying corner cuts.
Added to this the graphics engine that inexorably shows the signs of time, even on PC and new generation consoles. This is not only reflected in the outdated overall graphical representation of the tracks, but also in the driver models that look too primitive. This suffering at the motor level had already begun to be felt in the previous chapters, but now it is really too evident.
Conclusions
Tested version Xbox Series X digital delivery Steam, playstation store, Xbox Store Holygamerz.com 7.0 Readers (2) 7.9 your voteMonster Energy Supercross - The Official Video Game 6 is the culmination of all the improvements made within the series. It is a product that takes great care of the driving physics for the most passionate and introduces many aids to create more arcade gameplay for those who just want to have fun in the mud. There are not many new features, but they are decidedly incisive and make this chapter the most complete and concrete title in the saga, with an offer capable of satisfying all players. Although in terms of content the offer is attractive thanks to racing, multiplayer and free play, the signs of aging of the graphics engine and a still impetuous AI remain obvious defects that unfortunately cause a major problem in the overall performance of the game. experience.
PRO
- Wide variety of modes
- The physics of the game has improved.
AGAINST
- The graphics are not cutting edge.
- AI still has some balance issues
