![]() ![]() The graphics are fine, but fine isn’t really enough to sell a game anymore. A player who is brand-new to the sport, for example, may be told how to perform a ‘scrub’ early in the game, but will be left with absolutely no idea what one is, or why their bike keeps falling over every time they try to do one. It is in those little quality of life features that separate a good game from a great one. Where MXGP falls short, then, is not in longevity or the overall experience of thrashing a bike over obscene jumps at high speeds. MXGP 2021 never quite hits that sim-racer vibe that some players will be longing for, but it’s about as close as you’re going to get in the genre and being able to essentially choose how long a game lasts is a handy form of accessibility when your audience could be made up of anyone from children to busy parents. With all these options and a selection of AI difficulty settings, the career mode can go from a relaxed way to waste a few hours, to a very long, sometimes stressful battle for championship glory that never relents. The map is lifeless, even adding a few collectibles to unlock some new rider gear or bikes, or maybe even a few open-world quests to accomplish would have gone a long way toward making the mode more of an enticing long-term prospect. It’s surprisingly engaging, but still feels like it’s lacking a little something. ![]() You can also engage in user-created challenges such as waypoint races and time attacks, or you can create your own and allow others to compete against your best time. In addition to a lengthy career mode there is the return of Playground mode anybody who played the brilliant MX vs ATV games for the original Xbox will recognise this essentially an opportunity to mess about in a free-roaming environment filled with humps, bumps and landmarks, around which you are free to make your own fun. There’s even an option that forces you to manually tear off the sticky layer on your visor when it gets too muddy, which adds a wonderful sense of immersion in the first-person camera mode. ![]() Turning the physics to the advanced mode and turning off joint breaks certainly tweaks the difficulty up a notch but rewards the player with greater overall control over their bike and rider, allowing for much faster lap times with some practise. In addition to customising race length, the player is given the option to alter a variety of assists to make the game as user friendly or hardcore as possible. We can probably point some of the blame for this at the yearly release window, but MXGP 2021 is a full price game and should, therefore, meet full price standards.įor Motocross aficionados, this is great, and I honestly think that some bigger-name racing games could learn from Milestone here – they frequently offer the option to go full-on simulation length racing in their games and it can be a great way to while away a Sunday afternoon. ![]() Milestone is clearly aware of this, that much is obvious in their attempts to add content to their series, but over the years it has seemed like they just don’t have the budget to match the needs of the modern-day gamer, as their games have typically been good, but barebones affairs, with a great deal of re-used content. We are in the midst of a generation where hundreds of hours of content is the norm, games are expected to be playable for years without much more than a patch and maybe some DLC, and thanks to excellent work from the likes of Digital Foundry, standards are higher than ever when it comes to graphics and framerates. MXGP 2021 brings players once again on a journey through the international world of offroad motorcycle racing boasting all eighteen official tracks from the 2021 MXGP series plus four classic tracks, such as the fantastic Águeda in Portugal (due to return in the 2022 season.) In addition to the expected roster of tracks, we have all of the usual bikes from the likes of Yamaha and KTM, and over forty riders from the MXGP and MX2 classifications (including current champions Tim Gajser and Maxime Renaux.) The game has all the names and places you would expect from an officially licensed product, then, but these days a few famous names and some recognisable branding is far from enough to satisfy the hordes of ravenous gamers who are excitedly sipping on a can of Monster Energy in anticipation of a new Motocross game. ![]()
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