ActiveWindows -- Microsoft Motocross Madness Review

Game Review

Microsoft Motocross Madness

Fans of both Monster Truck Madness 1 & 2 have been waiting quite some time for this new release from Microsoft. This time instead of driving a truck, you're put onto the seat of a Motorbike.

Microsoft Motocross Madness has over 30 stadium based Supercross and Motocross tracks, they range from Indoor to outdoor and Freestyle. Here are the basic features.

	3D Accelerator cards only
	Easy to use track editor that lets you design your own Supercross dream course.
	Full 3-D environments give you total freedom to explore the terrain.
	User-assistance options provide fun for players of all skill and sophistication levels.
	Includes outrageous highlights from the popular "Crusty Demons of Dirt 1 & 2" videos.
	Utilizes Dolby Surround digitally sampled sounds of real riders on Motocross bikes.

Graphics and Sound

As expected, Motocross Madness has excellent graphics (It is 3D only remember). The graphics are slightly better than they were in Monster Truck Madness 2 and that's saying something, on my PC I had all graphic details etc up at their highest and ran the game in 800x600 mode. The length you could see in the distance was highly impressive and much further than I expected it would be, the animation on all the bikers and bikes is great, each stunt has its only detailed animation.

As per usual, there are a number of different graphical options to choose from depending on the speed of your PC. They range from Particles to adding the Stadium or Sky backgrounds. You can also cycle through a number of different views while playing.

MCM also has some pretty good "rock" tracks on the CD too, these help to raise your adrenaline when racing against friends or enemies on multiplayer mode. The motorbike sounds have been sampled from real Motocross bikes so they are also of the highest quality. MCM also fully supports the Dolby Surround Sound system.

Gameplay and Controls

This is where MCM excels itself, this is yet again a really enjoyable racing game released by Microsoft. There is really only one aim in this game, and that is to have as much fun as possible. The real fun is, of course, on the multiplayer side. You can race via a LAN, modem, or via the Internet Gaming Zone.....especially when playing the Moto-Tag event. Below is a list of Events that are included in the game.

	Supercross - Race the tracks the pros would create to test their opponents and get maximum speed and air time.
	National Race - Dig deep to take the lead in Motocross courses out in the wilderness.
	Baja - Rip through wide open spaces, quarries, canyons and deserts.
	Stunt Quarry - Excavated for maximum air time and bar-banging action.
	Moto-Tag - Last one touched is it! (Multiplayer only)

Easily the most enjoyable single player event (to me at least) is the Stunt Quarry. The aim of this is to do as many stunts as possible in a set amount of time, the more impressive the stunt, the more points you get. You race against a number of other bikers (up to 8 I believe) and the winner is the one with the highest amount of points at the end of the race.

Motocross Madness is also one of the first games to fully support the new Microsoft Freestyle Pro joypad. So you now only have to move the joypad to steer left or right, very cool indeed. Playing via a joystick is also pretty easy to use, you have the basic left, right, accelerate and brake, and you also have a couple of stunt buttons When you press one of the stunt buttons, you move a certain direction with the joystick to do a certain stunt, for example...Pressing stunt button 1 and pushing forward makes your biker do a "Heel Clicker" move.

All in all, there are not many non-violent games around at the moment that are more enjoyable to play than Motocross Madness and with a track editor included with the package, this game has some great re-play value.

Overall

91%

Version Reviewed

Version 1.0 US

Release Date

Out Now

In The Box?

1 CD
1 Set of instructions

PC Setup

	Pentium II 450
	Windows 98
	128 Meg SD-Ram
	Voodoo 2 - 8mb

	Cystal PnP Audio
	DVD-ROM - 32x

PC Required

	Multimedia PC with 133 MHz or higher processor
	Microsoft Windows 95 operating system
	16 MB of RAM (32 MB recommended)
	50 MB of available hard disk space (180 MB recommended) NOTE: The Track Editor installation requires an additional 7 MB.
	Quad-speed CD-ROM drive
	Microsoft Direct3D-compliant 3-D graphics accelerator with at least 2 MB of VRAM for a 166-MHz system or 4 MB of VRAM for a 133-MHz system
	Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
	Windows 95-compatible sound board
	Headphones or speakers (recommended)
	Force feedback hardware compatible with Microsoft Direct Input API (optional)

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