These staff manifest as perks – either positively affecting your vehicle by increasing grip, reducing in-race damage etc or by offering financial incentives, such as further income bonuses or the reduction of event entry fees. Win that event, and you’ll be given some cash to play with, a choice of sponsor who will pay bonuses for meeting certain objectives in the next event, and the ability to add staff to your team. You are initially presented with a generic vehicle and a first event to participate in. Monster Truck Championship‘s flagship mode is Career, which will immediately feel familiar to anyone who has played a racing game’s career mode in the last 10-15 years. I wouldn’t go as far as to suggest that it’s a barebones game, but the fact is that once you’ve seen its limited number of race and event types, there’s no real live content element to keep you engaged long-term. However, what separates the ‘good’ racers from the ‘great’ racers is often how much you can do behind the wheel and, unfortunately, it’s here that Teyon’s release falls a little short. Getting the driving right is, of course, the key thing for any driving game, and – for this alone – Monster Truck Championship deserves credit. It’s a handling model that ensures races are a fun jostle – somewhat reminiscent of the excellent Wreckfest, in fact – and not a staid slog. The game also offers options to tweak your experience, the most pertinent of which is whether or not you want damage to be visual-only in nature or have a genuine effect on the driving experience. Monster Truck Championship maintains a solid balance between making the trucks feel suitably hefty and grounded, and making the controls loose enough to allow you to powerslide around any corner. Thankfully, it’s another tick in the win column here.
Speaking of the vehicle models, the size would serve for nothing.
The graphics won’t blow you away (although there are some lovely sunlight effects on display), but stadiums are well detailed and the vehicle models are big and chunky. But it does that thing that good nostalgia bait – intentional or not – does, in that it does a pretty good job of looking how I remember PS1 racing games looking. Not that I’m suggesting that it looks like a PS1 game, of course. However, one of the most positive things I can say about Monster Truck Championship is that it very much reminded me of my time with racing games in the PlayStation One era, which might actually be my favourite era for racers. History is certainly stacked against it, given the somewhat chequered past of monster truck games over the last 30+ years.
0 kommentar(er)
