3, 2, 1, go!
SX Superstar features a whopping three game modes. Cough. You have arcade, which is fairly standard fair. From here you can select any track/event in the game, and have a quick blast on it. Best times/highest scores are saved, making the arcade mode also a rather average time trial mode as well. Multiplayer is your standard one on one bike racing with a friend. But the meat of the game comes in the championship mode.
Become a superstar
The championship mode tries to replicate the life of a motocross star. You start out in a rather small room for your apartment, with a scary looking girlfriend, no money, a phone/fax machine, and a bottom of the line dirt bike. It's your job win as many races as possible, in order to win a season. Win a season, you'll get a better house, better girlfriends will come and go, you will win more money in order to get a better bike, and you'll advance to the next season.
While this sounds good in theory, the whole thing is completely pointless. You get a bigger apartment. Yay, now you can look at something different while cycling menus between races. Yay, you get a cool picture of your current girlfriend. Yay, you get phone calls of encouragement (often these are repeated) throughout from your parents, girlfriend, agent and stalker. Can you interact with any of these things? No. Can you choose your girlfriend or apartment? No. They are irrelevant. The only thing that you can actually do anything with is the fax machine, which is used to offer you sponsorships. That's it.
Even worse, there's only three seasons, with each season becoming progressively easier as you upgrade your bike. The computer AI is simply stupid which also aids you - they seem to crash into anything. Even worse, if you do a few laps without crashing, you will be so far in front you will be able to do four or five crashes and still be in front. A decent gamer will be able to completely finish this mode overnight.
The championship mode is good in theory, but its execution is lackluster beyond belief.
Mud, glorious mud
To be honest, the game looks rather first generation. The game has a particularly drab selection of colours throughout. This is understandable since the game is a motocross game, but even the bikes and riders themselves are coloured with rather depressing shades of red, blue and the like. The tracks and arenas themselves look decent enough, even if the textures are rather bland. To the games credit though, the draw distances in the game are huge - you will rarely see any environments being created in the distance.
Effects as the bike cross across the terrain are kept to a minimum, with merely some rather pathetic clouds of dust/snow/water popping up behind the bike. Snow, mud and dirt attach themselves to your bike as you race around the track, helping to create realism, but also wipe out the main source of bright colours on the screen. However, the biggest problem is undoubtedly the huge frame rate drops that occur on some of the later tracks, particularly while there are other riders around you. This is simply unforgivable, as it at times renders the game completely unplayable.
Teen ANGST~!
The sound in the game is essentially adequate. There's nothing bad about it, but, there's also nothing that makes it stand out. The bikes have that distinct dirt bike sound, which is basically all you can hope to ask from a motocross game. The music, however, is another matter. Consisting of mostly nu-metal and punk music, most of the soundtrack is pleasant enough. Bands featured include The Deftones, Pitchshifter, Fenix TX, 28 Days, Jimmie's Chicken Shack, Box Car Racer, No Use For A Name, Orange 9MM, N.E.R.D., and Apollo Four Forty. However, this is one fatal problem. You can't select which track you want to play. Anywhere. You would think in races you would be given the chance to select a favourite tune, but nope. This is bad enough when it's a song you don't like, but, if the song finishes during the race, it simply restarts. It doesn't even pick another random track. This is a huge annoyance - especially in some of the longer races, where you will hear the same song up to four times in a row - and it's astounding that it wasn't taken into consideration.
Sliding through the mud
The gameplay in SX Superstar is somewhat of a mixed bag. The game has a definite arcade feel, with most turns fairly simple to get by at speed thanks to R1. Hitting R1 along with the analog stick will throw out the back end of the bike, allowing you to slide around turns with ease. Throwing the bike around for a perfect lap is something rather enjoyable, as the sense of speed - on the faster bikes, at least - is rather good.
However, the gameplay has far too many faults. The games inconsistent physics model is completely annoying. For some reason, you can powerslide up pretty much vertical banks without crashing, yet you will randomly crash while riding in a straight line for absolutely no reason. Once you do crash, you are reposted on the track in the worst possible positions. The game doesn't put you back on the racing line, oh no - it puts you right in line where you fell off. This is really bad when you plowed straight into a rock, as you will have completely turn around before you can go anywhere. The game also has a habit in respawning you half way up a jump after you crash from it. Often you simply won't have enough speed to get up the jump without crashing again, resulting in pure frustration. Even worse, the games handling at low speed is an absolute nightmare. At speed, the dirt bikes barely turn without a powerslide. However, at low speed, the bikes will do a full circle before you even realise it. The handling is so sensitive and fiddly that it will drive you utterly insane.
The stunt system takes a bit of getting used to. You will rarely have enough speed to get decent height off a jump alone, so you must tap L1 just prior to the jump. This fills up a meter which quickly decreases - the lower the meter, the lesser your jump. Once in the air, you must hold L2 and/or R2, and pull the analog in a direction. Stunts very from simply one hand off the handle bars to the insane backflip. Stringing a heap of tricks together is difficult, as you will rarely have enough air to do anything more than two. At least this is realistic to motocross racing, though.
Doing stunts will fill up a meter on your screen, which will allow you to gain a boost. This boost can be accessed at anytime, assuming there is something in there. The boost rapidly increases the acceleration of your bike and adds a decent amount of speed to your maximum, all while creating a rather nifty blur effect, making the bike tougher to handle. While this is a nice addition, it's all a bit pointless really, as you won't ever need it to beat the computer.
Circuit, Baja, Stunt
The game features three main race types. Circuit races, Baja races and the stunt events.
The circuit races are probably the best of the three. These are the simplest, as you simply have to follow the course around. However, veer over the invisible boundary of the track and you have barely two seconds to adjust your line before you are reposted on the track. Infuriating.
The most interesting of the race types is the Baja races. For these you must follow the green arrow to the check points, taking any route you desire. However, these races can quickly turn into a nightmare. Firstly of all, the green arrow only points in the direction of the gates, not the route you have to follow. This can occasionally lead to frustration as you accidentally take the wrong path, costing you time. Secondly, the gates are planted in some absolutely stupid locations. For example, a gate may be planted right before a fork in the track. As soon as you go through it, expecting to stay on the most obvious path of the two roads, then arrow flicks in the opposite direction, forcing you to powerslide around and follow the other path. Finally, when you crash, the game doesn't respawn your bike on the right path. It respawns you right where you crashed, usually in front of a rock or half way up a jump, as mentioned. Grrr.
The stunt events occur in one of the mere two stunt areas, where the most points wins. Simple as that. These events are the most difficult, due to the tougher nature of the games stunt system.
Don't buy
To sum it all up, SX Superstar is a mixed bag. There is a decent game in there, underneath all the bad. However, that game is simply not worth the money. The championship is simply too easy, too short and rather pointless to be an attraction. The time trial system is only a half effort, and the stunt system is, while good, not something you'll play over and over again in order to better your score. The game is a solid overnight rental, but nothing more.
Loading...
