MXGP: The Official Motocross Videogame (PS3)

MXGP: The Official Motocross Videogame (PS3)

MXGP: The Official Motocross Videogame is a Motocross simulation racing game available from retail stores and for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS3. MXGP is the official game of the 2013 season of the FIM Motocross World Championship with all of the official riders, teams, bikes, tracks and competitions. Milestone has a great pedigree of not only developing great racing games, but priding

themselves on the authenticity of the racing experience and is it any wonder that they have such a passion for everything motor sport related when you consider they are based in a country with such a racing heritage as Italy; the birth place of Ferrari. Milestone have previously expertly handled many formulas of racing with such classic racing franchises as Screamer Rally; Superstars Racing V8; SBK; and most recently WRC FIA World Rally Championship; Moto GP; and now the new Motocross videogame. The initial question has to be if MXGP: The Official Motocross Videogame can improve upon the formula of its predecessor MUD, which was Milestone’s debut effort in perfecting a Motocross videogame and while attempting to build upon that; also reach the heights of quality from previous Milestone racing games that have gone before it.

MXGP provides you with the chance of riding fast and powerful MX1 and MX2 category bikes with the MX1 category being the more prominent and faster class of bikes in comparison to the MX2 category. The technical specifications of the MX1 category bikes range from 175cc up to 250cc for 2-stroke engines and 290cc up to 450cc for 4-stroke engines, while the MX2 category bikes range from 100cc up to 125cc for 2-stroke engines and 175cc up to 250cc for 4-stroke engines.

A difference between MXGP and its predecessor MUD is immediately clear and that is the delivery of the various game modes and content. MXGP has five game modes in comparison to MUD’s four game modes with MXGP focusing on new areas and carving out a clear entity for itself as simulation, rather than MUD’s divide of arcade and simulation racing and while the trick battle game mode may have gone and be missed by some; there is more than enough new and fresh content to make up for it.

The Instant Race mode allows you to jump straight into a race with a randomly selected track, bike and rider in a race against fifteen opponents, which can be quite challenging as you will not necessarily be equipped with the best bike and you will have to make your way through the field from the back of the grid. The Instant Race mode is an excellent game mode to have particularly for people who only have a short period of time to still be able to play and enjoy the game in quick and short bursts, although you will still have the freedom to adjust the race length from three to twenty laps, AI difficulty and riding assists to your ideal preferences.

The Grand Prix mode provides the opportunity of racing on a single track with the ability to have a single race, a full race weekend, qualifying and races or a double race in a race against fifteen

opponents. When you select the Grand Prix mode; you can choose the MX category you prefer between MX1 and MX2, were you can choose from any of the official riders from your preferred MX category or alternatively select your custom rider, while you can also select a particular bike and team of your preference, alongside any of the fourteen tracks and retaining the freedom to adjust the race length from three to twenty laps, AI difficulty and riding assists to your ideal preferences.

The Championship mode allows you to create your own championship season comprising of races against fifteen opponents, which you can customise to your own preferences as the championship will be the usual fourteen races of the Motocross season in the order they are raced in, although you can customise the race calendar to a minimum of three races and a maximum of fourteen races comprising of your favourite tracks that you can repeat in the calendar as many times as you wish to race on them in a championship season as you have the ability to select the same track for all fourteen races of your customised championship season. In exactly the same manner as the Grand Prix mode you can select the MX category you prefer between MX1 and MX2, were you can choose from any of the official riders from your preferred MX category or alternatively select your custom rider, while you can also select a particular bike and team of your preference and the ability to adjust the race length from three to twenty laps, AI difficulty and riding assists to your ideal preferences, alongside the ability to change the duration of the race session between a single race, a full race weekend, qualifying and races or a double race for each round of your customisable championship.

The Career mode features both categories of bikes including: MX1 and MX2 and sees you attempting to progress from wild card to pro. MX2 is the lowest category and this is where you will start off competing against young riders as you attempt to prove yourself worthy of racing against the veterans of Motocross in the MX1 category. You will initially have three contract offers from MX2 teams each with the same level of team performance that are all looking for a rider that can battle their way through to the top half of the standings. When you have signed a contract with an MX2 team you will be able to

access your computer to check out your e-mails from your personal manager and team manager providing various advice for the season and races ahead, alongside your social feeds and the percentage of interest that other teams possess in wanting to sign you to ride for their MX1 or MX2 team. You can also customise your appearance from the locker; view the upcoming races on the calendar; view the current points standings on the television and read the latest edition of the MXGP Mag.

There are rather interesting elements to the Career mode, such as before each race weekend; an opposing rider will challenge you to see which rider has the highest finishing position of the two come the end of the race weekend with your reward being an increase in your fan base if you beat the opposing rider who issued the challenge. Your fan base starts at just ten fans, but progresses as you beat the opposing rider in the rider challenge and as you achieve team objectives of attaining a particular amount of points from your finishing position within each race of the race weekend. The added focus and importance of your fan base is that more fans will result in a higher percentage of interest from teams in MX2 and MX1 with lower percentages, such as 25% resulting in partial interest, while 50% means you are well on your way to receiving an offer, 75% upwards showing that you are on the brink of an offer and 100% with a green outline resulting in a firm offer from that particular team. It is important to note that you will only start to attract the big MX1 offers when you have really proved yourself with race wins and great performances across the race weekends, but even when you have attracted the attention of a large amount of teams you should always take your time to analyse their performance statistics before you choose the team that you believe is best for you; as the bike performance, team performance and team objectives are different for the majority of the teams.

Your first season in MXGP will see you participating for a trial period as a wild card rider in the MX2 category for two race weekends comprising of a practice session, qualifying session and two races with the first race weekend at Agueda, Portugal and the second race weekend at Lausitzring, Germany. The second season is technically your first complete season in the MX2 category of Motocross as the first season was only a trial period, so whereas the first season only had two race weekends; the second season is a complete season with fourteen race weekends each consisting of a practice session, qualifying session and two races that will see you racing on a global stage. Your second season is of arguably greater importance than the trial period of the first season; as it will provide you with multiple opportunities to join a team in the MX1 category to establish yourself in amongst the Motocross elite during your third season, although you will always have the support and advice of your personal manager and team manager throughout all of the events that shape the season.

The championship points system for all championships and categories mostly mirrors other forms of motorsport, such as Formula 1 although there are far more participants that are awarded points as every rider on the grid is awarded for finishing the race. The breakdown of the championship points system consists of 25 points for winning an event, 22 points for second place and 20 points for third place with 18 points for fourth place; 16 points for fifth place; 15 points for sixth place; 14 points for seventh place; 13 points for eighth place; 12 points for ninth place; 11 points for tenth place; 10 points for eleventh place; 9 points for twelfth place; 8 points for thirteenth place; 7 points for fourteenth place; 6 points for fifteenth place and 5 points for sixteenth place. The bikes reach higher levels of performance and faster speeds when you make it to the MX1 category with tougher opposing riders making your push for the championship more difficult to achieve.

The Time Attack mode provides you with the opportunity to set the best lap time possible around any of the fourteen tracks you wish to test your skills on to the point of attempting to climb the leaderboards of the fastest times as you compete against players from across the world to see who can really pull out the best lap time in a one lap scenario, although you can complete as many laps as you wish to do so. You can return to the pit at any given time to analyse your best sector times and your best lap times or to tweak your bike set-up to tactically improve the performance of your bike around a particular sector that you may not be performing to your optimum within, which adds a real element of strategy to the Time Attack mode.

MXGP features all of the official licenses for the 2013 season, which comprises of fourteen tracks situated in various locations around the world including: Losail, Qatar; Si Racha, Thailand; Valkenswaard, Netherlands; Agueda, Portugal; Beto Carrero, Brazil; Ernée, France; Maggiora, Italy; Uddevalla, Sweden; Kegums, Latvia; Hyvinkää, Finland; Lausitzring, Germany; Bastogne, Belgium; Matterley Basin, Great Britain; and Teutschenthal, Germany with nine of the fourteen tracks never having featured in MXGP’s predecessor MUD . There are 60 professional riders with each of their

respective bikes and teams such as Honda, Kawasaki, Red Bull KTM, Suzuki, TM, Yamaha and many more besides; and their specifications of MX1 and MX2 bikes.

There are three physics settings including: base, medium and pro, which adds a further degree to the difficulty level and the corresponding difficulty curve of the game as the three physics settings each provide totally different handling. The base physics feel more arcade oriented with a much lower chance of crashing when you have become accustomed to the handling, while the medium physics strikes a balance between base and pro physics as the pro physics are far more realistic and fully depend upon you perfecting the weight distribution of your rider across every turn and jump throughout the entire track.

Every track surface regardless of if it is hard pack, intermediate or sand features a strong amount of track deformation. The track deformation is brought about by the tires carving a path through the dirt and mud and with a total of sixteen bikes producing those tire tracks; it is only a matter of time before the track feels completely different to when the race had started. The difference in the track is due to the dirt and mud being flicked up in the process of the tire tracks being embedded into the mud potentially affecting the grip and traction of the bike resulting in you having to change your approach to the optimal racing line. The evolution of the track surface is very realistic, but unfortunately there is no dynamic weather system, which reduces the potential of further track evolution as there are no wet weather conditions to change the density of the mud and the surrounding track surface.

You can change the setup of your bike in the pits, which can potentially provide a significant performance advantage if you experiment enough in an attempt to absolutely perfect your bike setup for each track. The bike setup is spread across three categories including: suspension, gears and brakes with each category having various settings, such as the ability to change the preload, spring stiffness, compression damping and rebound damping for the front and rear of the bike; selecting a low, medium or high gear ratio; and changing the front and rear brake discs. There are also options to save, load or delete your preferred bike setups and to return your bike setup to the default factory settings.

There are unfortunately only two camera angles with one providing a new first-person perspective of the action from the view of the rider’s eyes, while the other camera angle is positioned directly behind the rider for a third-person perspective. You can re-position the camera angle from the rear of the bike for it to be closer to the bike or further away from the bike with a slide bar from the options menu that when compared to the default setting, allows you to have it twenty clicks further forward or twenty clicks further back from the rider to customise a third-person perspective that is suited to your preferences. I was hopeful for more than two camera angles as there are three more camera angles available in the replays in comparison to actual gameplay and I feel it is important to cater to different preferred perspectives. I believe that there should have been a camera angle mounted to the front of the bike with an additional first-person perspective from the eyes of the rider with a reduced field of vision created by the crash helmet and the sound effects of the rider’s breathing that would become more intense towards the end of the event based upon the endurance of the rider or reflecting upon crashes and the difficulty of the event to create the most immersive first-person perspective.

The photo mode from the pause menu really takes WRC 4’s free camera mode in precisely the direction I wanted it to be taken as the photo mode now allows you to snap some amazing shots of your bike, rider, the amazing scenery that surrounds the track and the track itself or you could just observe the background details in more thorough detail. It really is a great feature and allows you freedom of the positioning of the camera angle with panning, zooming, foreground focusing and anywhere from a minor tilt to a full sideways tilt in a fully immersive environment.

The XP system allows you to earn points towards levelling up, such as awarding a certain amount of points for finishing a practice session, qualifying session or either of the races in the race weekend as high up the field of riders as possible with a higher finishing position resulting in a better position bonus; awarding points for an AI difficulty bonus in which a higher difficulty level earns more points; and a game mode bonus with the points dependant upon which game mode you raced in.

You can watch a full replay of the race that you have just driven on with the ability to watch in slow motion, pause, fast forward, change the camera angles for a different view of the action, change the camera to view the action from the previous or the next rider and loop the replay back to the beginning to watch it all over again. You can view the replay from five camera angles with two from the rider’s crash helmet with the first helmet camera from the eyes of the rider showing the front of the bike with the legs and feet coming into view dependant upon the jump or area of the track, while the second helmet camera is quite different from the first as the camera is positioned on the side of the helmet and shows more of the bike and handle bars, but the common thread between both helmet cameras is that they both show the vibration going through the bike and rider, alongside the amount of head movement that causes as you ride over the terrain; a third-person camera from behind the rider to provide a view of the bike and the road ahead; and two dynamic camera angles positioned away from the bike with the TV camera angle changing from camera to camera in the style of Gran Turismo and the orbit camera being another third-person camera with the ability to tilt the camera angle high or low and 360 degrees anywhere around the bike. It would be great to see some of these camera angles make the transition to being playable as you are riding as they are that good and would further complement the immersion of the authenticity of the racing experience.

The My MXGP feature provides you with the ability to customise your rider and to view offline stats, multimedia and the game credits with the most important section of the four certainly being the multimedia section. The multimedia section features two categories including pictures and video with the pictures feature allowing you to view fifty pictures of Motocross action; forty-five of which are unlockable. The videos feature provides the opportunity of watching five detailed and extremely helpful video tutorials before you start riding, so you can learn all of the essential knowledge required regarding a general introduction; riding techniques; jumping techniques; controlling the positioning of your bike in the air; and how to perfect your scrubbing technique before hitting the track for the first time.

The rider customization feature allows you to customise your rider data from your rider’s personal data including their first name; surname; nickname; nation of origin; and selecting their portrait picture from a pre-selected range of fifteen riders, while you can adjust your rider’s appearance in regards to their helmet design with a range of twelve varying design available; a choice of thirty tones of colour for your rider’s logo; gloves and boots; any racing number to choose from between 2 and 998, so you can most likely choose your lucky number unless it is 0, 1, 999 or above; and three font styles for your

rider’s logo; and the ability to choose the name of your personal manager and select the portrait picture from a pre-selected range of twelve personal managers. You can have some fun with the customisation for the names you choose for your rider, although I would like to have an option to take a picture from the PS3’s PlayStation Eye camera, so you could take your own picture or a picture of anyone or anything else, while I would also like to be able to fully customise my personal manger’s name, rather than having to choose a pre-selected name that ties in with the pre-selected portrait picture for my personal manager to add more to the level of rider and personal manager customisation, which is hopefully an area that will be expanded upon in a future sequel.

Another area of the My MXGP feature is the offline stats that first of all inform you of your current MX level, while separating the rest of the statistics into two major categories including: global statistics and career statistics. The global statistics provides a break down of various statistics across a variety of game modes including: your rider’s overall distance covered; the amount of air your rider has accumulated while jumping; your overall amount of time spent playing; the amount of times your rider has fell from his bike; the amount of holeshots you have achieved; the amount of race victories, second place finishes

and third place finishes; the amount of Grand Prix wins, second place finishes and third place finishes;

the amount of completed races; the amount of pole positions; the amount of Grand Prix wins for each of the fourteen tracks; the amount of Grand Prix podiums for each of the fourteen tracks; the amount of Grand Prix pole positions for each of the fourteen tracks; and the amount of completed races for each of the fourteen tracks. The career statistics provides a break down of various statistics that are purely related to your rider’s career including: the amount of race victories, second place finishes and third place finishes; the amount of Grand Prix wins, second place finishes and third place finishes; the amount of pole positions; the amount of times your rider has fell from his bike; the amount of holeshots you have achieved; the amount of team objectives your rider has successfully achieved; the amount of team objectives your rider has failed; the amount of victories and losses against opponents; the amount of completed seasons; the amount of MX1 and MX2 championships won; your rider’s amount of team changes; the amount of Grand Prix wins for each of the fourteen tracks; the amount of Grand Prix podiums for each of the fourteen tracks; and the amount of pole positions for each of the fourteen tracks.

The controls are well mapped to the DualShock 3 controller and are fully customisable. The default control scheme consists of pressing R2 to accelerate; pressing L2 to use the front brake or reverse; pressing L1 to respawn on track following a crash or loss of direction; pressing X to use the rear brake; pressing triangle to look back behind your bike; pressing O to manually shift up a gear; pressing square to manually shift down a gear; moving the direction of the left analogue to the left to steer your bike to the left; moving the direction of the left analogue stick to the right to steer your bike to the right; moving the direction of the right analogue stick forwards to distribute your rider’s weight in a forward motion; moving the direction of the right analogue stick backwards to distribute your rider’s weight in a backward motion; moving the direction of the right analogue stick to the left to distribute your rider’s weight to the left; moving the direction of the right analogue stick to the right to distribute your rider’s weight to the right; pressing left on the d-pad to look to the left; pressing right on the d-pad to look to the right; pressing select to change the camera angle; and pressing start to display the pause menu. There is a lot of vibration from the DualShock 3 controller which certainly adds to the immersion of riding over the terrain as the controller will vibrate during sharp turns, upon landing after a large jump

with plenty of air and even during crashes with your rider falling off his bike or collisions with other bikes.

The graphics are pretty good and have certainly taken a step up from MUD with more realism and trackside details, such as various landmarks and advertising hoardings for each track and crowds, while the fourteen tracks are re-created with pinpoint precision accuracy within a ratio of 1:1 and the track surface is deformable as it tears apart and flicks up mud as you and your fifteen opponents ride over it. The movements of the bike, rider, race engineer, grid girl and more besides have all been fully motion captured to provide a complete sense of realism to guarantee that the movements and the rider’s weight distribution that you see and feel as you experience the game is representative of the real world of Motocross, which has certainly resulted in fluid and accurate animations. The frame rate is pretty good and represents a real sense of speed and danger, which combines perfectly with 720p HD resolution and small graphical details, such as the material of the rider’s jersey rippling particularly during large jumps, alongside the excellent and appropriate use of lens flare effects that make the graphics more realistic in the pursuit of providing an authentic experience.

MXGP certainly boasts slick and polished presentation that is very appropriate to the subject matter and nature of the game, thanks to the showcasing of the world’s best Motocross bikes and riders in dramatic slow motion to the right of the menu screens with a deformed track surface showing plenty of tire tracks in the background with seamless integration between all of the menu screens. The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main menu, Instant Race menu, Grand Prix menu, Championship menu, Career menu, Time Attack menu, online multiplayer menu, online leaderboards, My MXGP menu, options menu and various gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons on the DualShock 3 controller. There are pre-race videos dedicated to each particular race with footage from previous races at that particular track and the local surroundings, which really provides an important build-up to the race to get your excitement and adrenaline flowing for the race that is just ahead of you. The loading screens are just as good in their presentation as the menus as they contain interviews with your opposing drivers on how their team is developing their bike and their teams’ financing for further development, alongside various details, track layouts and pictures of the course and gameplay tips of how to adjust your weight, where to adjust particular settings or detailing game modes to keep you occupied during any loading times.

The audio consists of sound effects, voice-overs and music with the sound effects playing an essential part in re-creating the real world atmosphere of Motocross. The sound effects bring an ambience that has been massively improved in comparison to MUD as you can now hear more of the crowd with their horns and cheering, while the revving of the bike engines, crashes and incidental sound effects are mixed perfectly. The voice-over instructs you during menu screens and gameplay menus regarding important events in your career, how to access various items around your office and their relevant importance, how to increase your fan base and explanations of various gameplay elements, how to scrub, how to adjust bike or game settings and much more besides, alongside the music that is clearly heavily rock influenced, which is rather appropriate for Motocross.

The trophy list includes forty-nine trophies with thirty-four bronze trophies, twelve silver trophies, two gold trophies and one platinum trophy. The majority of the trophies are based upon skill as you are required to win a race at each of the fourteen tracks in any offline racing mode, such as the Instant Race, Grand Prix, Championship or Career game modes; the On the Best Gate bronze trophy for setting the fastest time to claim pole position in qualifying; the Perfect Weekend silver trophy for setting the fastest time to claim position in qualifying and winning both races in a single offline Grand Prix; the Great Come Back silver trophy for winning a race from last position on the grid; achieving various career objectives, signing contracts and winning championships in the Career mode; and earning

20,000, 40,000 and 1,000,000 fans in Career mode. A tip that I would recommend for anyone who wants to reduce the duration and difficulty of your journey to the platinum trophy would be to adjust the level of the artificial intelligence of your opponents to the lowest you possibly can from the options menu, which should significantly improve your chances in every race throughout the entirety of the career mode, instant races, grand prix races and championships you are participating in as you progressively move towards the much coveted platinum trophy. There are six online multiplayer trophies, although any fears of you having to grind out a certain amount of victories against more experienced opponents can immediately be relieved as three of the bronze trophies and a silver trophy requires you to complete one hour and three hours of valid online races, while the other two bronze trophies require you to complete an online Grand Prix race and an online championship and as the online multiplayer is quite entertaining; there is absolutely nothing to fear about the online multiplayer component ruining your chances of platinuming the game. There are some easier trophies, such as the Allow Me to Introduce Myself bronze trophy for creating your own custom rider; the Hats Off bronze trophy for changing your rider’s helmet in the rider customisation section; the Motorhead bronze trophy for entering the bike set-up mode in the Pit; and the Let’s See That Again bronze trophy for entering the replay mode for the first time. I would estimate depending upon skill, a friend or anyone to play against online to attempt the online multiplayer trophies and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take around twenty-five hours to platinum the trophy list.

There are four difficulty levels including: easy, medium, hard and realistic. The major differences between the easy and realistic difficulty levels are the artificial intelligence will become more clinical as they will bide their time and wait for an appropriate overtaking opportunity, rather than just trying at any random occasion as they look for the perfect racing line to stay alongside you and move ahead into the distance when their opportunity arises, therefore vastly reducing their chances of crashing.

The online multiplayer is split into two separate sections with an online season mode and an online race mode. The online season mode sees you competing against players from around the world in a fully customisable championship as you ride as your custom rider for a team of your choosing that you have unlocked from reaching the required MX level. You start off with an MX2 category bike with the ability to earn the promotion to an MX1 category bike by earning enough points from the races within the online season mode, which is dependant upon your positions at the end of each race.

The online race mode includes a quick match game mode that allows you to quickly enter a lobby and if there are no populated lobbies available at that time, you will be entered into your own lobby with a randomly selected settings, although you still get to choose your bike with the ability to invite a friend to join you, so it pretty much comes across as an online multiplayer version of the Grand Prix game mode from the single player component.

The create match game mode provides the ability for you to create your own customised lobby with a choice of the following: the length of the game mode such as a Grand Prix or a Championship with the additional options of the number of laps for the race from three to twenty laps or the number of races for a Championship from four to eighteen races and the ability to participate in qualifying or not; category

of event ranging from MX1 and MX2 bikes; the physics from a free choice for each player to a set base, medium or pro physics; selection policy for randomly selected or voting based choices for which track you are about to ride on; the AI difficulty between easy, medium, hard and realistic for the AI controlled opponents; the option of enabling the possibility of collisions during the race; and privacy settings for having an open or private lobby.

The search match game mode provides a quick and efficient way of searching for the online gaming environment that best matches your preferred settings including: the length of the game mode such as a Grand Prix or a Championship with the additional options of the number of laps for the race from three to twenty laps or the number of races for a Championship from four to eighteen races and the ability to participate in qualifying or not; category of event ranging from MX1 and MX2 bikes; the physics from a free choice for each player to a set base, medium or pro physics; the player’s maximum disconnection percentage to attempt to ensure that none of your opponents quit because they are being soundly beaten by a superior rider; selection policy for randomly selected or voting based choices for which track you are about to ride on; the AI difficulty between easy, medium, hard and realistic for the AI controlled opponents; the option of enabling the possibility of collisions during the race; and privacy settings for having an open or private lobby. If you have very limited time and none of those options matter to you, then you can just leave the options on their default settings and search with a simple press of the X button.

The online leaderboards focuses on the fastest times from each player for each track of the time attack game mode. The time attack rankings cover all of the fourteen tracks across the MX1 and MX2 bike categories with each leaderboard containing the overall amount of players within that particular leaderboard; each player’s rank; name (PSN ID); the physics setting used during the player’s fastest

time; the bike used during the player’s fastest time; and the best time set by each player, while you can compare your positioning on the leaderboards with players that occupy the top positions, your friends from your friends list, globally with players from around the world and to immediately find and display your position within any given leaderboard.

The multiplayer component lacks a hotseat multiplayer feature, which would have been an ideal workaround to create a form of multiplayer without split-screen multiplayer for players to be able to compete with each other on the same PS3 to see who could set the fastest lap time around a track in the time attack game mode, while competitive and co-operative split-screen multiplayer are hopefully

features that will be implemented in a future MXGP sequel as it would certainly add even more entertainment to what is already a rather fun online multiplayer mode.

While some of MUD’s issues have been resolved and progressed upon, such as the addition of a first-person perspective, free camera mode, replay mode, video tutorials and the content has been significantly increased and taken in a more realistic direction; there are a few improvements that I would still like to see from MXGP’s sequel. There are no podium presentations for finishing in the top three during any of the race weekends in any of the game modes and although you do get to see the rider celebrating with his team manager; it would be better to see podium celebrations, while a re-introduction of the freestyle trick battles from MUD would also be preferable as they were fun and provided an additional layer of variety to the gameplay. MXGP has a great online multiplayer suite of content, but lacks any form of local multiplayer, which desperately needs to be addressed in a future sequel in both split-screen competitive multiplayer as you race for separate teams, co-operative multiplayer as you race for the same team with inter-team rivalry while attempting to accumulate as many points for the team throughout the season as possible and hotseat multiplayer for the time attack

mode. MXGP lacks any form of weather conditions and a day-night cycle other than the Losail race in Qatar which is naturally raced at night, which could have provided further replayability to be able to play the same tracks with various weather conditions to create further unpredictability regarding the grip from the track surface and at different times of day to provide the tracks with a different look to them, which would also be provided by unlocking reversed tracks were clockwise would become anti-clockwise and mirrored tracks were a left turn would become a right turn and vice versa, which would benefit the game across all of the game modes with an even greater significant increase in replayability, while the ability to share the pictures taken during the free camera mode via Facebook and Twitter would be a welcome addition. MXGP lacks cross-save and cross-play with the PlayStation Vita version of the game, although hopefully this level of compatibility between the two versions of the game will be implemented in a future MXGP sequel.

The replayability of MXGP is greater than its predecessor as there is a significant amount of content on offer across all of the game modes and categories. The Instant Race, Grand Prix, Championship, Career and Time Attack game modes in single player, alongside the online season and online races of the online multiplayer and competitive online leaderboards are all sources of the amazing replayability that will be entertaining you and providing fun even long after the amount of time it will take you to have completed the Career mode and experience everything the game has to offer, while the implementation of unlockable content via the XP system is another form of replayability and reward for achieving great performances throughout race weekends and across multiple game modes.

Overall, MXGP is a worthy sequel to MUD that takes Motocross more in the direction of simulation and authenticity than MUD, but still has potential for further growth in a future sequel. There is plenty of original content, official licenses and unlockable content that will keep any fan of Motocross, motorsports or racing in general coming back for more for quite a considerable period of time, therefore MXGP is a highly recommended simulation that captures the heart of Motocross in a racing game that you should certainly purchase.

Jason Bonnar

9 out of 10