The lack of excitement and speed moves over with you into the Xbox Live races, with a matchmaking system that throws you onto an empty track, giving you the chance to ride around waiting for someone else to join. The AI on offer isn’t up to much competitive action but then neither is the rest of the game. The lack of any sort of minimap or counter to show how far you are from making up lost ground, or whether indeed you need to push to extend that lead means that once you’re out on your own, there’s very little to worry about other than possibly adjusting your bike to compensate for the odd jump or two.
All are basically the same as each other with races that see you going up against numerous AI (or in the case of the Live stuff, players from around the world), in anything up to 30 laps – YES 30 LAPS! I would like to say that the racing is tight, frantic and filled with speed but that would be telling more than one lie, as once a few corners have been taken in and you’ve sailed out in front or been left at the back of the pack, you very rarely see another rider again. Race-wise we’re given the chance to compete in a single race, a career, a split screen local match up or via the Xbox Live service. Throw in the most monotonous droning of engines and you can see why MX vs ATV Supercross bores the hell out of me, although I can’t be too harsh with the accompanying background music for that isn’t too bad at all. The stadiums and dirt tracks that you find yourself racing on are just about okay with some nice tracks dug into the dirt, but there hasn’t been a great deal of effort put in to creating the winding tracks adding some blocks and throwing some flashlights into a faceless crowd just isn’t good enough for me, last generation or not. I’m sure a pure bike nut will be able to tell the difference and I’d fully expect them to, but with my ‘gaming’ head on as opposed to my ‘bike’ head, then I can’t see much between them. Visually things are pretty poor, with character models being laughable (just take a look at the board girls before any race and you’ll be tempted to switch off straight away), and whilst the actual bikes and ATVs that you ride are fairly detailed, to the untrained eye they all look exactly like one another, with only some customisations in the form of vehicle colours helping distinguish between them.
But with a game, there needs to be a bit of enjoyment, a bit of fun or a sense of achievement and unfortunately none of that is present. That’s the basic premise and if you take it solely on that idea, then the game is just about okay. As the name suggests, MX vs ATV Supercross brings together the world of Motocross bikes, blends in some all terrain vehicles and gets you racing in Supercross stadiums over a number of laps.