Reviews from

in the past


The first of 2 Monster truck games released on disk for the console, Monster Jam puts in you the shoes of a Monster Truck driver taking part in a variety of competitions. It's officially licensed so it is packed with all the famous trucks such as Grave Digger and in what I assume are real life locations and competitions from around the globe. I was pretty new to Monster Trucks before playing this, so let me try to run down how it works. A section of the game is some fairly standard racing competitions. You race against other trucks and smash through obstacles, smash into each other and smash through different routes and shortcuts. These are probably the most interesting part of the game. It's quite difficult at first. The trucks skate around as if they are on ice and crashes can send you flying off the track. This is probably fairly realistic as I can't image these trucks are easy to drive in real life. However, once you get used to the controls it is pretty fun. The physics are nice and it's great smashing through the environment. You get a real feel of the track and going over jumps is a lot of fun. The other modes are an elimination mode which is quite similar to racing, a trick based mode which is a bit like tony hawks in a monster truck and a head to head mode which is a time trial. These other modes add some variety but are not as good as the racing. The main issue with the game is how quickly I got bored with it. There's no real progression to the game. Each level just feels like more of the same and is in reality quite simplistic, which detracts from the fun and the longevity of the game. I wouldn't bother with this one but I didn't hate it.

Honestly not too bad, lacks any real content but it's enjoyable.