racing and flying

By combining impressive physics, slick controls, vast environments, and fantastic animations, developer Rainbow Studios (ATV Offroad Fury, Splashdown) has crafted a challenging and addictive motocross racer that successfully delivers a realistic riding experience without getting so caught up in many nuances that immediate fun is sacrificed. Featuring a slew of sprawling, outdoor motocross courses and treacherous indoor supercross tracks rife with hairpin curves, jumps, and obstacles that you contend against, the main name of the game in MX Unleashed is to cross the finish line first, though you are encouraged to string together tricks when airborne to rack up points that you can use to unlock new vehicles and tracks. Unleashed has some crunchy sound design, bursting with roaring engine effects, although the staple X-xtreme sports nu-metal soundtrack feels more like a hard thigh massage than a kick in the teeth. Smooth handling is complimented by solid physics, while the opponents boast A.I. that is much more balanced than Freekstyle's rubber-band rivals. Challenging and addictive, motocross fans could do much worse than throwing down the nickel for this one.

MX unleashed has pretty good graphics but it comes up short in the race mode as the physics are twitchy and control is not very natural. The Supercross tracks tend to force you to follow a single line around the track to complete and if you ask any pro racer, they will tell you this makes for some frustrating races as everyone is forced to play follow the leader.

Motocross game designers seemed to have become enamored with graphics offered on the PS2 and Xbox platforms and they have dropped the ball on game-play and realism. I have tried all of the MX based games out for the PS2 and I have found that 989's Supercross Circuit for the old Playstation still offers a better racing game with better physics.

I rented this game from Top Hat because I wanted to see if I liked it before buying it. I put it in, and the intro was awesome, even though it was just shots from racing in the game.(Whatever happened to the little videos of REAL people doing stunts in video game intros?) I went into career mode, and you got to totally customize your player from his bike(including a few 4-strokes), to his outfit and colors. You ride in the amatuer 125 class, and make your way up to the big 250s. You can even ride on 50ccs and 500s. This game is awesome and 2-player is fun because you can do 2-player freestyle.