Review for Monster Jam Steel Titans. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 25/06/2019
“The heat is scorching and people roar in the stands. Looks like these Yankees can't wait to see some flying wreckage. Luckily I was able to hide the pipe under my suit and find a place to smoke it. This charge of Tuskgee Airman is not bad, all in all it gets worse before risking the neck bone on a four ton beast. Let's go ... Let someone hold my pipe, and send me a good one ... "
Shark park! I love metal!
The initial menu of the game welcomes us with a burst of heavy metal and sound effects while moving between the menus that are decidedly "challenging" to bear in the first place. In the hope that you don't have children who just fell asleep, welcome to Monster Jam Steel Titans on PlayStation 4.
After the mandatory thirty seconds of “headbanging”, the desire to act on the audio options is urgent: the music is so loud that it covers everything, including the sound of the monster truck. Once the waters have calmed down, a tutorial will begin that will introduce you to the initial part of the training area, which will be nothing more than a sort of canyon called "Monster Jam University”Where to begin to get familiar with the controls and the various types of stunts.
Once the tutorial is complete, you will begin to understand more about the various modes. The game itself is very static from the start, if you thought you would find yourself in the adrenaline-pumping fervor of a spectacular triumph of torn metal sheets, flying tires and a setting to be devastated, unfortunately you will be very disappointed.
There are 25 Monster Trucks in all, all the most famous under license with their drivers, while the Stadiums where you will go to exhibit are a total of 12. The aim of the game is to start from minor races until you become more skilled and compete in the Monster Jam Finals. Having said that it would all seem very exciting and also makes you want to put yourself to the test immediately, but unfortunately the disillusionment is around the corner.
I would but I can not
Let's start by saying that Monster Jam Steel Titans uses Unreal Engine 4: we are talking about a graphics engine that was used for Assetto Corsa Competizione and Gears of War 4, just to name a few. We agree that the genre is different, but all in all it is reasonable to expect something more. Monster Jam Steel Titans is supposed to be the triumph of mud over the bodies and torn up obstacles, instead the mud just barely lands on the tires and many of the obstacles when hit don't break, they just move. The huge tires do not even leave a footprint on the ground, the Monster Trucks are all in all well made, as well as the noise of the engine, however the setting leaves something to be desired: there are demolition tests in which whoever scores more wins. aim to destroy things: wooden crates, barrels, cars, vans ...
Only the crates are destroyed, the barrels are thrown away, cars and vans remain perfectly intact, even if you have a score for hitting them. The only thing that gets destroyed about the Monster Truck is the bodywork, from a mechanical point of view only one wheel breaks (always and only the rear right). To fix it, just stop and hold X. At the cost of sounding stern, in 2019 things of this kind are hardly tolerable.We are not talking about an Indie project, Rainbow Studios is one of the Rainbow Multimedia Group studios that over the years has made itself famous (with varying fortunes) for being there specialized in Off Road video games. Their latest work, “MX vs. ATV Unleashed ”, did not reap the hoped-for fruit due to flawed game mechanics and fairly monotonous gameplay. The same problems, unfortunately, we find them in Monster Jam Steel Titans. And the problems don't end there.
Arcade… Yes, but in moderation
Monster Jam Steel Titans is not a driving simulator, it is clear and it does not even want to rise to that much, however it would be necessary to respect at least some laws of physics, not all of us agree, but better to go easy on the poetic licenses: when we are talking about Monster Truck we are talking about really existing vehicles, with almost 2000 HP engines, 66-inch tires and a total weight that exceeds 4 tons. Within the game, vehicles of this kind spin in the air after a jump, performing pirouettes, spins and all kinds of stunts, with a "pinball effect" always lurking that will make the behavior of the vehicle totally unpredictable. As if that were not enough, in the most hectic situations, sudden drops in frame rate make everything quite complicated to manage.
The Artificial Intelligence is not received: during the head-to-head or the tests in which you compete to finish first in the outdoor races, the opponents just proceed in single file and do not offer any resistance: it's all in your hands, you just need to make no mistakes to take home easy victories and convert the money won in the purchase of the most famous Monster Trucks. In freestyle events, you just need to apply the few combos explained in the tutorial to beat the competition. The vehicle's evolution system, with money that can be spent to improve elements such as the engine, chassis and handling, is not very influential in the actual management of the vehicle. Once you have practiced the most profitable tricks and maneuvers to do, you can win freestyle events by always doing the usual two or three things.
Multiplayer? No thanks.
Believe it or not, Monster Jam Steel Titans doesn't have a multiplayer mode. The game is in fact based only on single player with free roaming mode in which you can explore the Monster Jam University map, which expands as you win races, a career mode and the "quick race" mode where you can try some single specialty. The fact of not having foreseen the multiplayer mode leaves a lot of perplexity: Monster Jam Steel Titans is a conceptually "old" game and being able to compare yourself with other players would certainly have made things a little more exciting. Buy a game whose Collector's Edition costs around 80 euros to find yourself doing outings in the woods and stunts to the limits of the absurd, is an idea that may not come to many people.
“… And this time too it went well, I'm all whole. A little less the truck, that cut tire thought it would put me out of the game, deluded. Now I'll smoke another one quickly, before those boring interviews… The story of heavy vehicles is starting to get tasty, who knows if I don't decide to try them more often. "
Without wishing to be too negative, despite the clearly inadequate rating, we can say that Monster Jam Steel Titans is the classic video game suitable for a young audience, who only thinks of having fun during snacks with friends. If you are looking for something interesting about the world of Monster Trucks, sadly it is better to let it go and hope for something better in the future. The game is sold for around 40 euros. If you want to try it, the advice is to wait for it to drop in price, because the risk that it will soon end up collecting dust on the shelf or at the bottom of the Ps4 library is very high.
► Monster Jam Steel Titans is a racing-Sport type game developed and published by THQ Nordic for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 25/06/2019
