Reviewed by Colin Edmondson Game: Monster Truck Madness Publisher: Microsoft Entertainment Format: CDROM Available: Now Requires: O/S: Win 95 Processor: P60+ RAM: 8Mb+ (12Mb Recommended) Graphics: SVGA CD-Rom: X2 Soundcard: All major cards supported Tested on: Processor: Pentium 166MHz O/S: Windows 95 RAM: 32Mb Graphics: Matrox Millennium 4Mb Vram CD-ROM: Panasonic quad speed Soundcard: Soundblaster AWE32 Controls: Microsoft Mouse
Monster Truck Madness
Introduction.
A few months ago I read an interview with Bill Gates about Microsoft’s strategy for PC games. After many, many years of just dabbling with the games business - arguably producing games for people who don’t really like games or at least wouldn’t own up to it - it seems that Microsoft are about to start throwing their undoubted might at the computer games industry, and Monster Truck Madness is one of the first few titles which signal the change in their approach. If this is a taste of what’s to come, then I for one, welcome their decision. As far as I can gather ‘Monster Truck’ Racing is an established sport in the USA with its own tournaments, championships and personalities. Being a Brit and having never seen any of this stuff on the TV, I honestly can’t say whether it realistically portrays the sport - nor can I say whether having a keen interest in or knowledge of the sport makes this game more enjoyable. However I can say, that if you enjoy any kind of racing game - and maybe even if you don’t, this is really great fun.
First Impressions.
Actually my first impressions were formed by playing the demo version downloaded from the MS web site.
http://www.microsoft.com/games/monster/default.htm
It’s an 11Mb download but I think its worth the patience (and the phone bill) to have a look. I was instantly struck by the feeling of constantly grappling for traction, skidding & sliding around the corners and bumping & jolting over the rougher off-road terrain. The downloadable demo has just one course and a choice of two trucks to race - but it’s enough to get a good impression of the game’s capabilities - it’s also enough to try playing head to head via Microsoft’s Internet Gaming Zone (see ‘Multiplayer’ section below).
The Game
"Get ready for ferocious heart-pumping action on the wild side of the racing world. Monster Truck Madness puts you behind the wheel of the most thunderously untamed, radical machines ever to take up racing."
If it isn’t already blatantly obvious, the game is all about racing Monster Trucks. Monster Trucks look like pick-ups on steroids with outrageously oversized wheels and power to match. By all means go for a clean race if you want to but this is a contact sport and you can fight as dirty as you like!
In the full version of the game there are a range of different circuits, rallies, drags and tournaments to race over. In all of the circuits and rallies the only essential condition is that you go through each of the checkpoints in turn - how you get there is your business. Unlike many racing games you really do have 100% freedom of movement, so if you want to try to find a short cut - that’s just fine! Furthermore, the terrain and scenery don’t run out as soon as you’re away from the designated track so you’ll probably want to go exploring just for the hell of it!
It’s difficult to convey in words just how well this game displays realistic - or at least believable physics for the trucks - you really need to have a go to get a good idea of this. Controlled power slides are a key skill to master - ease off on the gas as you enter the corner, then floor it to straighten out, but if you overdo it, it’s all too easy to end up snaking out of control. Different surfaces - tarmac, mud, stones, grass etc have noticeably different characteristics in terms of speed and grip. Approach a tight turn on tarmac too fast and you’ll probably just under steer - do the same thing on a bumpy off-road surface and you’ll roll. The nature of most of the circuits is such that a fair proportion of the time is spent in the air - there’s an art to this too - get your landings wrong and chances are you’ll roll. Inevitably collisions with just about everything you encounter are frequent, particularly when you first start out. Anything which would move in real life when hit by a 5 ton truck does so in the game - fences, bollards, waste bins (trash cans), picnic tables etc with the added bonus that you can leave a few obstacles in the path of your competition!
There are also a range of different trucks to race and each has slightly different characteristics - so just as you’ve got the hang of power sliding one through a tight right hander, you need to change tack completely for the same bend with a different truck. Predictably, there are varying levels of difficulty and varying degrees of auto-assistance which you can select or disable. Once you start to feel fairly proficient - it doesn’t take too long - you can experiment with more advanced settings, for example trading top speed for acceleration or vice versa. I found that the Rookie level was too easy in no time at all, Intermediate takes a little time to master, and Professional is fairly demanding.
If you want to analyse your strengths & weaknesses, successes & failures, or even if you just take a narcissistic pleasure in watching your own performance, you can replay your races, view them from a multitude of different angles and even save them as ‘videos’. I was probably rather less enthusiastic about ‘Army’ Armstrong’s somewhat inane commentary and some of the video footage which accompanies the introduction and closing sequences - although I’m sure it’s been done very proficiently, it just didn’t add much to the game for me - your mileage may differ. It’s a minor gripe however, and it shouldn’t detract from the quality of the game itself.
Technical Stuff.
Clearly Microsoft are showing off their DirectX 2.0 technology here. Monster Truck Madness is a native Windows 95 game which uses the DirectX drivers to provide performance supposedly comparable to a DOS based game. Although you can play the game in a window, the performance is still pretty dismal in that mode. Playing full screen you have the choice of three screen resolutions:
320 x 200 320 x 400 640 x 480
Microsoft recommend the first option for a Pentium 60, the second for a Pentium 100, and the third for a Pentium 166 or above. My Pentium 166 is no slouch with 32Mb of RAM and a Matrox Millennium but I found that 320 x 400 gave the best mix of quality and speed. Monster Truck Madness uses Direct 3D so if you have one of the latest breed of graphics cards which support this standard, such as the Matrox Mystique, you should be able to achieve a worthwhile performance improvement, as the graphics card takes care of the 3D rendering, thus removing this burden from the processor itself. Beware though - not all graphics cards which claim to support 3D actually support the Direct3D standard.
Multiplayer.
If ever a game was designed to be played against other human opponents, this was. There’s plenty of mileage in the game playing against computer opponents, but human opponents are just so unpredictable! It doesn’t disappoint either, providing a variety of ways to connect to other players;
Via a LAN up to 8 players can connect Via direct modem link 2 players can play head to head Via the internet up to 8 players can connect either via a matchmaker service or by sharing IP addresses. One example of a matchmaker service is Microsoft’s own ‘Internet Gaming Zone’ site:
I tried this and found that - once connected (I had a few minor teething troubles getting there) the performance even over a transatlantic connection was quite respectable which suggests that the data transfer volume is pretty low.
Conclusion.
Not a game to be taken too seriously perhaps, but a lot of fun if your computer is fast enough to cope. I initially expected the attraction to wane fairly rapidly but not so! What’s more, since it runs from Windows 95 and can be loaded in its entirety to your hard disk, it’s the perfect antidote to slaving over a hot spreadsheet. A definite thumbs up.
=========================== Rating: 8/10 (Recommended!) ===========================
