Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 2

Genre: Motorbike Racing

Players: 1-8 Competitive (Online)

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Review:

Monster Energy Supercross 2 is a Motorbike racing game that, with its absurdly overly-long name and energy drink branding, seems from the outside like it’s probably just a shameless cash-grab of a videogame, but cracking into it, it’s actually surprising how much effort went into this one. Well, parts of it anyway.

It’s not just the energy drink license that’s put to use here, the game features all sorts of professional licenses, from real riders, real bike companies, even real-life racing arenas. A lot of work has been done here to ensure that the “Official” in this game’s stupidly long title actually belongs there.

What’s more, this game has surprisingly deep play mechanics, to the point where I suspect most players will gloss over a lot of them. There’s a tutorial to guide you through everything, but it doesn’t do an especially good job ensuring that players actually understand how the game’s mechanics work. Still, it’s easy enough to race without knowing all of the ins and outs of the game, and those who are willing to invest the time to learn everything here, there is a lot to explore in the game’s mechanics alone.

The game plays pretty well, too. I didn’t get that really nice visceral feel out of this game that I really like to get from an off-road racing game, but the gameplay nevertheless did a great job giving a good racing experience.

Surprisingly, there’s more. The game has a fully-fledged campaign mode where you gradually earn cash, fans, and grow the career of your rider (one of the pros or a custom-made one). And on top of that, the game has a nice track editor, with the option to share tracks online. And while the game is sadly lacking local multiplayer, there is support for online play for up to 8 players, which is nice.

It’s really frustrating, then, that I can’t give this game the glowing review that these elements deserve, because the sound and graphics are just so lacking. In the graphics department, the game’s resolution and textures make for a “muddy-looking” experience, and I’m not talking about the fact that there’s a lot of mud in the game. I really wanted crisp visuals to make the gameplay pop, and the Switch version of the game just makes me want a better version. The sound is even worse – I’m not sure why, but my sound glitched out on multiple attempts at playing through, completely cutting out all sounds except music and crowd noises, which made for a really detached way to play this game.

It’s a shame too, because with more polish, Monster Energy Supercross 2 could have been a truly great game, but as-is its flaws hamper the enjoyment of the things it does right.

tl;dr – Monster Energy Supercross 2 is a motorbike racing game with surprisingly deep mechanics and a really good feature set, but it’s let down by poor, muddy graphics and glitchy sound problems.

Grade: B-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2019 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Most Underrated, Best Driving/Racing Game

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