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Monster 4X4: Masters of Metal Review
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Developer |
Ubi Soft
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| Publisher |
Ubi Soft
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| Genre |
Driving
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Ever heard of the Monster Jam TV Show? Yeah, me neither. Master of Metal, however, if based on this supposed television show, and is actually the second game to make that claim. The premise is promising: mud, diesel-gurgling trucks, and courses full of jumps. Unfortunately, MoM is never sure enough of itself to deliver the full package that you might have had in mind. As far as racing games go, this is about as average as they come.
Gameplay - Masters of Metal is about as barebones as it possibly could have been and still had some sort of anything left to play. The core of the game is simple: you’re a rookie on the monster truck circuit out to get a little respect (and earn enough money along the way to buy a rad new truck). Sound cliché? It is. In fact, clichés are about all you’re going to get in this game.
There are two basic modes that allow you to do some sort of activity: Quick Races, and the tournament mode. Now, before you’re overcome by the sheer variety offered, let me calm your thoughts with the fact that these two modes are almost EXACTLY THE SAME. Difference? One is set up with a bracket. The basic races offered are the same in both modes: same tracks, same cities. In fact, they could have left either mode out and the game would be better by sheer virtue of one less thing to read on the main menu.
Luckily, the basic race mode actually provides some entertainment – for about fifteen minutes. After that, there’s no reason to ever come back unless you’re just lusting for mud (which isn’t as abundant as you’d expect). I won the very first race I started by over a half a lap, and I am far from ever being a “professional gamer”. This game has no learning curve once you figure out which button does what. You push gas, and the truck goes. Stay on the track, pull ahead of competitor by the end of the first lap, drive two more useless laps, win race. Wash, rinse, repeat for the next circuit. It’ll bore you to tears.
But what’s this? Two different kinds of races? Don’t get your hopes up, Billy Sue – they’re just as mundane as the circuit races. One, in fact, is even more pointless, being an offroad mode where now even the challenge of staying on the track is gone, seeing as there is no track. In fact, the only thing you have to worry about is landing too hard and causing a tire to pop off. But have no fear: another one will “magically” replace it in a few seconds. If only Kia offered such service, maybe somebody would actually buy one of their cars. The third mode is only entertaining for novelty’s sake: you’re asked to perform tricks and execute them well to move on. Excited? Yeah, I wasn’t either.
The upside to this all is that you at least get to race in mildly entertaining locales. The stadiums they put you in are pretty cool looking, though I had a hard time buying the idea that 100,000 people would ever drag themselves out to watch me whip everyone in town by two miles. The tracks themselves are mildly fun to drive on, though they can be frustrating at times (some of the hills are so steep that if you don’t get enough speed built up, you’ll teeter over the crest of them). And control, for the most part, is actually pretty solid – the trucks turn on a dime (which is actually unrealistic, when you think about it) and accelerate like you’d expect, so you’ll never lose a race due to control – although that’s not actually a good point, since you’ll probably never lose a race period.
When you finally complete a circuit (and wake up from the sleep that it will induce), you can take your “hard-earned” cash and go buy yourself some neato upgrades like boosters and such! Unfortunately, it won’t do you a shit lick of good, since upgrading your monstrosity (or buying a “better” one altogether) won’t really offer any substantial difference from any other setup. Yeah, they give you stats for the individual trucks – but I’m not sure why, because they don’t mean anything. Seriously though, did you really expect anything more at this point? Yeah, I didn’t either.
Graphics - Well, in an exciting change of pace, the graphical presentation of this game is: average. Those stadiums I mentioned before? They’re cool and all, but there isn’t any detail to appreciate at all. In fact, it’s so watered down and simplified that there’s one guy waving the American flag every so often in the crowd – and they’re all spaced evenly apart, and waving the flag in exact synchronation. Yeah.
The mud? DISSAPOINTING. Where is the mud? It’s apparently run off to a better game, because it isn’t anywhere to be found here. No mud splashing, no mud sliding. No mud anything. For that reason, I can’t report to you about cool features like real-time mud stains. In fact, instead of kidding myself, I’ve just accepted that even if there WERE mud, we would never get such a feature in this game.
The trucks – around which the game revolves – all look the same, just with different colors (I imagine that the person who felt motivated to inject such variety into this game was promptly fired, and the developers left behind didn’t know how to undo this unheard-of color variety). The grass is blah, the dirt is blah. Trees? Yep… blah. However, if you’re looking for one aspect of this game that isn’t blah…
Sound - At first I was actually pretty turned on by the noise of the engines revving at the star/finish line – but then I realized that it was just the combined noise of all the trucks together. Not surprisingly, they all sound the same. There aren’t even really too many other sounds to report on. The commentary is laughable, which tells me that it must be ripped purely from the television show – and the crowd only cheers at the beginning and end of each race (and yes, they cheer exactly the same way, every time).
Bottom Line -
But who can blame them for only cheering at the start and finish? What occurs between is a snore fest that could only be lost by a third grader. That is assuming, of course, that the third grader starts the race, puts down the controller and goes outside to play for two hours – and even then it might be a photo finish at the line when he gets back. Masters of Metal would be more appropriately titled Masters of Mediocrity; there’s just nothing here to justify ever playing this game. The racing is mundane, and there’s no real reason to ever suffer through it and actually finish the game seeing as upgrades mean very little in the grand scheme of things.
I can’t even recommend this game to monster truck fans; although I’m sure they could certainly find worse games of the kind out there. If you’re a real nut for mud and trucks, give it a rental. If you’re not, then don’t even bother playing it at your mud-nut-friend’s house.
Review by Greg Joachim
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