Milestone Interactive has become the go to developer these days if you want anything that revolves around on two-wheeled racing. The studio has over 10 motorcycle centric games to its name, the majority of which have been published and developed under the MotoGP and SBK labels. The studio's most noteworthy title outside of the licensed stuff is undoubtedly MUD, a almost exceptional arcade focused off-road racer that was more about racking up stylish jumps and tricks rather than simulating the complexities of real motocross. MXGP is Milestone's first attempt to do for motocross what they did for MotoGP as a whole, and while the end result isn't quite up to par with the studio's usual results, its still a decent first step.
MXGP is clearly built around the MUD foundation though its much different in execution, aiming instead to deliver an authentic motocross game, a rarity in today;s market. There's a clear reverence for the fundamentals of the sport present , with three gradients of riding physics influencing much of the gameplay: Base, Medium and Realistic. Base is the least demanding and the closest thing on offer here to shenanigans available in MUD, letting you get away with any number of bad turns and ill-judged jumps. Medium and Realistic both up the complexity significantly and require you to not only focus on handling the bike, but manipulating the weight of your Rider in order to keep aloft in the middle of jumps.
With little to no first hand experience with motocross, its hard for me to judge how close MXGP gets to the real thing. However, the handling of the bikes and the physics of riding does a good job of instilling an actual sense of weight and speed onto the game. You have to tackle every corner and jump with a different set of tactics if you want to get ahead, adjusting your throttle, brakes and lean accordingly.
For a game that has a fair amount of nuance in its racing, MXGP does a very poor job of relaying the basics of it all to the player. The tutorial takes the form of five instructional videos that in themselves do a poor job of explaining the game to the player. The game would have benefited immensely from a well scripted tutorial.
While the actual performance of the bikes retains the measure of quality and aunthenticity we've come to expect from Milestone , MXGP suffers from the several problems that seem to have become mainstays with the developer. The visuals are drab at best with bad texture quality, tepid style and a lighting engine that wouldn't be out of place on a early Wii title.
There also a few heavily apparent omissions with the audio department. The game boasts a complete and utter lack of in-game music, leaving you with only the roar of twelve engines bursting through your speakers come race time. Even then you'll be hard pressed to find a difference between that as each manufacturer's spouts forth the same guttural moan, but that comes as part of the genre I suppose.
This homogeneous feel is present throughout though, carrying over the actual performance of bikes and riders themselves. No matter how much I tinkered with each bike's parts or who I picked from the extensive roster of riders it all felt uniform with no real changes evident in my performance regardless of my choices.
The game modes themselves are sadly also without any distinguishing characteristics. The main draw here is, as usual, the Career mode and you'll be hard pressed to find a single difference between the career mode on offer here and in Milestone's other games. It functions exactly as expected with zero surprises on offer and no innovative features tacked on. A host of other game modes like Instant Race, Grand Prix, Championship and Time attack are all present, with the only real difference between them being the number of races you undertake in succession.
The 14 tracks that are on offer here luckily provide a decent amount of variety in terms of their layout and dirt composition, forcing you to change tactics on each individual course. The usual antics you get up to on a sand based track isn't going to get you anywhere when its time to hit the mud.
Rounding out this rather inoffensive package is the standard range of multiplayer modes with each race supporting up to 12 players. I found very little issues with the game when I took the action online, with little lag noticeable provided I stuck to the UE servers.
It's easy to see why Milestone has built up a committed following with their MotoGP games over the years, and it would be great to see them do the same with the motocross genre seeing as there are very few titles made for this crow. But the clear lack of a budget and low level of passion present in MXGP doesn't spell a bright future for this endeavour right now. There's a real lack of the drive and flair that makes this sport so unique and gripping , resulting in MXGP being a game that is serviceable, but not much else outside of that.
6.5/10
