#1
As you would expect, MX Unleashed has your usual fare of game modes. The bulk of the game is in the Career mode, where you participate in a number of championships, each having five or more races in them. Win the most points and you win the championship, and increase your world ranking from 100, to 1. On top of this is the freestyle mode, which sports five territories to be exploded. In freestyle, you must complete a variety of tasks set for you, such as making a certain number of jumps before computer opponents can, beat other vehicles in a race, rack up a whole lot of points in rapid time with stunts, land a series of jumps perfectly, and so on. This mode is actually extremely well done, despite being slightly repetitive, and you will definitely spend most of your time with MX Unleashed in this mode. These elements can also be used outside of career mode in the standard set of modes, such as single race, freestyle and so on.
The actual racing element is average at best. There are over twenty tracks, but none are particularly good. Not only are they repetitive, but many lack any opportunity to build up any speed. The races are won and lost on the incessant jumps that litter the track. Whilst this is reflective of motorcross, it does not translate well into games. The races could be quite thrilling if there were, well, any places where you could build up some significant pace, before pissing it away on a straight featuring five to ten jumps. To make this worse, the races are drawn out far too long at five laps - virtually nothing is under five minutes here, when there should be nothing over that mark.
Just what the game needs. More jumps.
Look Out Below!
The physics model in MX Unleashed is quite good. The bikes bounces in turn with the territory they're covering, dig into the ground when you don't quite nail a jump, turn in a convincing manner, and so on. Going hand in hand with the physics model is the control system. On a whole, the controls are very tight, giving you plenty of scope to slide the bike through even the trickiest of turns. However, one problem appears when handling the bike at a very low speed, where the bike just seems to want to constantly argue, leading to much frustration in freestyle as you try to turn your bike around on a small coin.
The stunt system is a fairly simple affair. Hold a stunt button down and yank on the analogue stick, and, depending on the direction, you will pull off a stunt - the more stunts in one go the better your points will be. This is pretty much fine, aside from the placement of the stunt buttons at triangle and circle - they would have been much better off being L2 and R2. But, this is as much a preference than a fault of the game itself.
As you would expect from a motorcross game, there is a heavy emphasis placed on the 'leaning factor'. Leaning forward on the bike will cause you to hit the ground sooner off of a jump, and generally keep the bike closer to the ground. Leaning back will pull back on the bike, giving you more air off of a jump. It seems obvious, but you really have to process this quickly if you want to get anywhere in MX Unleashed.
That's not the end of the 'leaning factor', so to speak. In order to gain substantial air off a jump, you must pull back the stick on the approach to a jump then flick forward at the tip of the jump. This will send your rider soaring through the air, bending the rules of physics in the process. Without this technique, you won't get anywhere in the game.
Brown. Lots of brown.
The visuals in MX Unleashed aren't anything you should even remotely consider writing home to tell mother about. Being a motorcross game, there is no shortage of brown, which is arguably the least flattering colour available. As a result, there isn't any time where you will drop your jaw, in awe of the beautiful, brown surroundings. The models themselves, despite being a little blurry, are colourful, well detailed and well constructed, breaking up the monotony of brown tracks and surrounding land quite well. The animation is the strongest point of the visuals, with a lot of sequences inherited from Rainbow's Motorcross Madness games. Falling off the bike will attract a rather comical animation, as your player becomes little more than a rag doll as he bounces across the ground.
Brown. Yum. But the rest of the game looks pleasant.
Do you call my name? Do you breed my pain?
As is the norm for extreme sports games these days, MX Unleashed comes with an angsty soundtrack from various punk and nu-metal bands. The majority of it is acceptable, with the standout being Do You Call My Name by Ra. Other bands worth mentioning include Flaw, Trapt, Trust Company and a variety of other bands. Some is downright awful though, but you can thankfully select which song you want to hear through the games audio menu.
The effects in MX Unleashed are fairly standard fare. You have a various number of wheezing motor sounds for the various bikes and a solid assortment of clunks and bangs when the rider eats the dirt, which is about all you can expect from a motorcross game.
Not quite a podium position
All in all, MX Unleashed is an extremely reasonable proposition for a motorcross game. The game is quite deep, with a plethora of champion races and an everlasting freedom in freestyle mode. It also plays quite decently, with the bikes handling tightly and soaring gracefully through the air. However, at the end of a day, MX Unleashed is a motorcross game - a hybrid of extreme sports and racing games that appeals to fans of neither. If you're a fan of motorcross or its games, then you should definitely check this out. For every one else, it might be worth a weekend rental, but there are far better racing/extreme sports games out there.
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