Monster Truck Championship has no right being as good as it is. For whatever reason, I’ve been inundated with all manner of Monster Truck games over the years going all the way back to Monster Truck Madness on an old Windows 95 machine. And it’s safe to say that’s probably the best monster truck game we’ve had as the genre can’t seem to ever get things quite right.
You have the Monster Jam licensed games, of which I have reviewed here in the past, which, while fun, have pretty much turned into weird open-world things filled with stunts and gags. They are “fun” but have long since given up on the simulation of letting you become a monster truck driver in favor of floating coin collection and jumping a Roswell UFO. Then you have the Steam early access releases that are so bad that I couldn’t even bother to review any; one making me feel like I was cheated out of money when I got it for free. Pretty sure it was so bad it was pulled from Steam. FROM STEAM! A platform that will publish anything.
So, when Monster Truck Championship came across my desk I didn’t think much of it. The game didn’t have a sponsor backing, was only officially announced a few months back, and has one of the most generic game titles in gaming history. The game sat on my PS4 dock and I joked and took bets with some colleagues on just how bad they game would be, thinking of those bad Steam games of days gone by. And then I sat down to play and was blown away with just about every aspect of the game. Look, 2020 has been a big bag of crap and I have little faith in things turning out anything other than bad. Thankfully, Monster Truck Championship is pretty darn good for what it is. The game works so well and is chalk-full of so much content for price that it might just walk away being the sleeper title of the year.
Monster Truck Championship is the sort of game that grows on you. It starts very bare-bones and simple with the trucks feeling loose and floatly as you work your way through the pretty in-depth tutorials, even if they can be a little hard to figure out thanks to their layout and execution, all of which are fully voiced. Menus are explained, driving has a lot of meat on the bone, and customization is surprisingly deep. You can, and probably should, spend a lot of time in the various tutorials as this isn’t your standard racing game. Monster trucks are massive beats and each set of wheels are independently controlled. And this is where the game gets interesting.
I never even realized this was how monster trucks works, and I’m someone who has played more monster truck games than I care to admit. Each stick on the controller handles each of the trucks two axles. Early on I had trouble maintaining control over the massive truck until I got the hang of the wheel system. Knowing when to turn which set of wheels allows for some pretty precise control, especially around corners and tight turns. It’s even important in correcting a drift that feels like is getting away from under you.
As you play you earn cash in events which are set up as a series of mini-events like there would be at a monster truck show. You might race, then do a stunt run, and then a drag race and so on in all different order at different tracks. The better you do the more money you make and the better your standings are. There are 10 main events which are broken up into leagues, and there are three leagues to complete making for tons of racing, stunting, and crushing. And you can customize your truck and run a gay southern redneck who hails from North Korea and drives the pink camo Rebel Hunter monster truck if you want. I sure as hell did!
While Monster Truck Championship doesn’t break new ground or look all that great at times with texture loading issues and some degradation problems, the one thing in its favor is that it’s a whole lot of fun. One thing that surprised me was the way you get off the line at a start. Think of starts like a mini game where you need to throttle just right to get off the line. In solo modes a bad throttle can lead to a penalty which tacks on time to your run making it important as every tenth of a second counts. During races you’ll be fighting for position and you’ll be slamming against each other, the damage tearing away parts of your truck. But unlike almost every other monster truck game the damage here matters and can affect your performance.
Monster Truck Championship has a great mix of events that will satiate any fans of the real monster trucks out there. Racking up points and perfecting tricks is a blast and the online leader-boards will leave you wanting to see how it’s possible for someone to score a million points on a run when you are struggling to break 100,000. And then there are a lot of tricks to figure out, that separate axle control really allowing for some interesting moves that other monster truck games only dream they would achieve. Stunt modes are wild and the added camera cuts during massive moves is a nice touch. And there’s nothing quite like seeing a Tony Hawk-style multiplier system implemented into an monster truck game.
But wait, there’s more! Can you imagine more content to fill out an already impressive game that is sitting at the $40 budget title range? Boom, we got some Quickplay which allows you to enjoy the game in short bursts and mess around with some options and the multiplayer mode makes taking your truck online simple and enjoyable. It’s a competitive game, sure, but there is just something about lining up for a drag race against a real person that always makes for a good time even when you lose. And finally there is the customization features Monster Truck Championship doles out.
Jumping into your garage you can take your fresh off the assembly line stock truck and trick it out to your hearts content. Races unlock new parts, shells, stickers, etc. And each part has its own unique features for different parts of the game. This is even more apparent in the tuning section that let’s you knob and slider freaks adjust a lot of your trucks details. Going to run some races? Well, you can tune your ride for that specific type of race. Got a hankering for some freestyle? Well, you can tweak it for that as well. It’s not the deepest system I’ve ever see but it offers a lot more than pretty much every other monster truck game out there.
And it that wasn’t enough there is the management section of the campaign mode. As you race you’ll catch the eye of sponsors which if you sign with can offer some serious perks. But it isn’t as easy as simply signing on the dotted line as you will have to complete a series of objectives in order to cash out and earn additional parts. This adds another layer of complexity to events and is a nice risk and reward system. But it isn’t just sponsors as you can also hire staff, each of which comes with their own perks that boot your ride during the campaign. A specific mechanic might help increase your engine torque but the better they are the more they will cost you. The same for engineers, managers, and logistic managers, all of which come with certain perks.
I’m really surprised at the amount of content on offer in Monster Truck Championship. It’s not a perfect game but for a studio building a monster truck game from the ground up with no prior experience in the genre, they knocked it out of the park. If the team can build off of this foundation we might just have a new king in the monster truck world of gaming. Monster Truck Championship is available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One starting on October 15, 2020. A Nintendo Switch version of the game drops on November 19.
Pros:
+ Easy to pick up and play
+ Solid core gameplay
+ Good customization options
Cons:
– AI can be a little dumb
– Graphics are inconsistent
– A little rough around the edges
Final Score:
*A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for this review*
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