Introduction:
Today’s game is a 44.3Mb download and when installed expands to 114Mb. In case you’re wondering what makes this game so large (for an arcade game). 106.9Mb of this is due to the graphics (i.e. Meshes and Textures). The game comes with a partial installer; that is it installs to C:/Games/Super Motocross by default (you can change the installation path during the install wizard set up), but no shortcut is installed. You’ll have to create your own shortcuts. To make a desktop shortcut you just need to right click on the games executable and select Send To then scroll down to Desktop (Create Shortcut). If you want a Start menu shortcut, please go to the game discussion forums where you’ll find a sticky thread that tells you how to create one.
The Game:
This is similar to the Monster Truck Trials that was given away earlier this summer (July 09). Though we’re now looking at a trial bike rather than a truck, plus the settings are different. You now have a jungle background instead of a bleak desert setting. It’s a much better looking game than it’s predecessor, though the background graphic is rather repetitive after several levels of similar flora, with the background hills hardly ever changing.
Basically you ride a motocross bike through 15 different obstacle course's. There are four bikes available, one that’s unlocked at the beginning of the game and three more (with names like Masterbike 2000, Magnum Striker and Titanium Pro), which can be unlocked by winning the gold trophies, though the final bike is harder to unlock (I’ve not managed to get it unlocked yet). You have to win a bronze trophy (or silver and gold) at very least to unlock the next level, of which there are 15 to complete.
The difference between the bikes is the power rating; which should help you to get up steeper hills easier, especially from a standing start, (though I couldn't find much difference between the three I unlocked; so don’t hold your breath, lol). The levels definitely get harder from level three onwards, with steeper hills to climb and deep gullies to jump, which if you don't take at the right speed you won't make them. Falling in requires your nitro booster, otherwise you won't get out of them and will have to restart the level. So... don’t forget to use the Nitro when necessary. It’s definitely useful for the steeper hills and also for building up speed to jump the deep gullies.
Controls:
• Roll Left – Left arrow
• Roll Right – Right arrow
• Move Forwards – Up arrow
• Move Back/break– Down arrow
• Use Nitro – Space
• Pause – Esc
System Requirements:
Operating system………MS Windows 2000/XP/Vista
CPU……………………Pentium 1GHz or higher
System RAM ………….256MB
Video RAM…………....64MB or above
Images:
You can see all the screen captures on one page HERE and a slide show HERE
Conclusion:
The handling of the bike was virtually the same as the Monster Truck nitro game that we got back in July. The only difference was the graphics. I liked the overall look of the game ([i]apart from the odd flickering stripes that appeared quite frequntly, which you can see in many of the screenshots), but I already have a really good trials bike emulator called Trials 2: Second Edition that is vastly superior to this game. I’ll be keeping it though for some light relief as it’s a much easier game than Trials 2, which I find almost impossible to beat. I was able to progress through 3 levels at gold standard with no second retries even though I was relatively slow. You just have to make sure you use the left and right arrows to steady yourself during the jumps (which helps to stop the bike over balancing)
Overall, if you don’t have any other games of this type, it’s okay for free and should give you some measure of enjoyment, but I think purists to this genre will find this too easy, the graphics a little to flung together and the game far too short. At the very most there’s an hours worth of game play for the average player and that’s if you need to repeat each level at least once or twice.
With many arcade games available for much less than the asking price I think it’s over priced at $9.95 and would be better sold at $4.50 at the most. I do like this sort of game so am rather generous with my scoring giving this a 5.5 out of 10 for the physics aspect of the game.
Other useful information:
Music:
There are four MP3 tracks that you can replace if you don’t like the menu and in game music. All you need to do is go to C:\Games\Super Motocross\\Data\Music; select the four MP3’s you want to use from your collection and rename the four files you use to Level1, level2, level3 (no spaces) and menu.
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Other Games:
You can get a reasonable quad bike racing game called ATV Quadro Racing HERE It’s available free from Gametop.
Just a note of caution about Gametop. The site now has a yellow rating with Site Advisor. Some of their games do try to install toolbars and hijack your browsers home page, but both can be avoided by making sure the boxes are unchecked during installation. The site also seems to have ramped up their pop ups, so make sure your pop up blocker is active if you want to avoid those annoying pop ups. Once the games are installed you will get the sites home page opening up when you shut the games down, but there is no in game advertising and effectively you’re getting free commercial arcade games :)
Another free bike racing game called Moto Racing (which I think is better than the one being given away for free today), can be downloaded from HERE, though it doesn’t have the physics emulation that Super Motocross has. Monster Truck Trials the previous giveaway that is similar to today’s game giveaway, is also available for free HERE], though it’s had a name change to Monster Truck Challenge.
Here’s a couple more online trials bike games that can be played full screen apart from the last one (i.e.Super motocross) called Bike Master, click HERE and Trial bike Pro, click HERE. The following is a window only game, but still worth checking out if you like motocross games. It’s called Super Motocross, and can be played HERE
If you're willing to pay a little money you can get a couple of excellent 3D Motocross games called Motocross Mania and Motocross Madness 2 that allow you to move around a vast open world, and have several different modes of play. You can pick up either of the games below for less than today’s giveaway if you look for them on the net. I've seen Motocross Madness 2 (the better of the two games) for less than $5 on Play.com, though you may have to buy a second hand one. I couldn't resist posting the images below.
Motocross Mania:
Motocross Madness 2:
