![]() Milestone continues to restrict MXGP's multiplayer options to online modes, since splitscreen races still aren't supported. But alas, all Milestone could muster for its third motocross game in four years is another soulless, lifeless career mode that contains no personality and offers no unique features. And since MXGP 2 already has CBS Sports Network posters plastered throughout its tracks, how about getting some CBSSN announcers to record some race commentary - a feature that Excitebike 64 was able to pull off 16 years ago on a console equipped with 4 MB of RAM. ![]() I also wish sponsors and competitors would treat your biker differently, depending on whether he's built a reputation as a clean/dirty racer. ![]() This trek would be much more exciting if you had to worry about the financial costs of damaging your bike and the physical costs of damaging your body, like gamers had to more than 20 years ago in Electronic Arts' Road Rash and Skitchin' franchises. You aren't even allowed to alleviate a small portion of that tedium by setting the schedule to single-race events - like you can in the exhibition championship modes - so you're stuck running two three-lap races, at the minimum, during every stop along the international tour. Did you place high enough in that day's standings to please your sponsor?Īside from that, there are zero consequences to your actions during the 18-event, 36-race season, making career mode's gameplay loop extremely dull and repetitive. Did you outplace that day's randomly selected rival driver?Ģ. Three consecutive turns on the same course can each have wildly different degrees of what the game deems to be permissible corner cutting, to the point that you'll have to memorize on a turn-by-turn basis which yellow sticks can be driven through and which ones must be obeyed if you're trying to earn a top time on the leaderboards.īeing a corner-cutting, wreck-causing jack#*% won't cost you any sponsorships, in-game currency or points in the season standings because MXGP 2's simplistic career mode only cares about two things:ġ. These immersion-destroying teleport restarts will also trigger if you ride too far outside a track's boundaries (marked by yellow sticks), but there's not enough consistency in the game's logic for penalizing corner-cutters. "Milestone clearly wants consumers to view MXGP 2 as a serious motocross simulation." The absurdity of this feature in a simulation racer is compounded by the fact that, on many of the game's jumps and turns, crashing will actually teleport you ahead of nearby racers who were driving normally. At least in Road Rash, your rider needed to realistically run over and retrieve his bike after a wipeout before he could climb back on top and step into first gear in MXGP 2, every wreck will instantly transport your rider back onto the course, with no noticeable damage to the bike or its driver. The collision physics are so laughably dated that they feel like they belong in the first Road Rash game on PlayStation 1, not the second MXGP game on PlayStation 4. But when the game's Kawasaki bikes are bouncing off wooden signs, chain link fences and fiberglass helmets like they were tightly coiled trampolines, it's hard to take MXGP 2 seriously. Milestone clearly wants consumers to view MXGP 2 as a serious motocross simulation, otherwise, the company would not have spent so much of its budget licensing real drivers, sponsors and courses. On tight tracks with thick traffic, AI bikers also have lots of trouble staying upright, frequently getting bent over sideways and bopping back and forth between each other like a bunch of blow-up clown dolls. Playing on "Realistic" difficulty (the hardest option) only increases the AI's skill at sticking to the top racing lines as it doesn't improve the CPU's lack of reaction to human riders. In career mode, the same three or four names always seem to find their way to the front of the pack, making it feel like each race is following an identical script, with your rider having little chance of disrupting the computer's plans. CPU drivers in MXGP 2 mostly just follow predetermined paths, being careful to avoid contact with fellow AI racers, and generally ignoring the user's presence on the track.
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