The fifth entry in Milestone’s annual Monster Energy Supercross series has finally arrived, looking to expand on the new features from its predecessor.
Monster Energy Supercross: The Official Videogame is a racing simulator based on the AMA Supercross Championship.
The series began in 2018 and a new game has been released every year since then. The game features all the official tracks, riders, bikes from each season, which has been a dream for fans.
The series has been developed to feature realistic riding physics in an attempt to recreate an accurate experience.
With the series debuting on the current-gen consoles, last year players were treated to 60FPS gameplay and updated visuals.
Monster Energy Supercross 5 has admirable visuals with each of the bikes being spitting images of their real-life counterparts.
It's not a massive leap from the last game but it is clear to see that the developers have paid much more attention to the intricate details, while also improving the real-time lighting.
The tracks have also been given a boost with much better life-like weather conditions that see the likes of mud pits and water sprays when raining to miniature dust clouds on the grittier tracks.
The Compound is one of the highlights in Monster Energy Supercross 5 as its free-roaming world is simply stunning. Character models have realistic reactions during prominent moments in races and will sustain real-time wear and tear.
However, off the track, they still feature lacklustre animations from past games and fall really flat during the character creation process.
Monster Energy Supercross 5 features many of the same modes that came with the last entry in the series.
The best place to get started is the series' first tutorial, Futures Academy which gives players an in-depth guide on how the game works with lessons being divided into different levels.
This is a great way to make the game much more accessible for new players, whilst allowing existing players to improve their skills.
The Career Mode returns which allows players to progress from the Futures academy to the 250 and 450 classes.
Not much has really changed from the last version of this mode with the ability to unlock a couple of new features and skills as players progress through.
Career modes feature a lot of content but can feel like a grind to unlock the different classes. Other than a few extra tweaks to the mode, fans of the game will know what to expect.
Players will be able to take part in Singles events which will allow them to pick from one of the famous racers on real tracks.
This is a great mode to get some real-time action while getting to grips with the controls. Monster Energy Supercross 5 has a steep learning curve, but it's much more accessible than the last entry.
There are several Riding Aids that players can tweak to find the right settings to get them started and change as they find their feet.
There is also the rewind mechanic which allows players to recover their bike when they go off the circuits. This is helpful as it allows players to retry mistakes made at crucial moments.
The Compound mode returns allowing players to take part in mini-games situated in a small open world.
This is a great place to get a feel for the game outside of competitive racing, it’s filled with mini-games and challenges that unlock great rewards.
Players will once again have access to the Track editor which has been enhanced with a new Rhythm Section Editor which allows players to design more complex sections on their track.
Monster Energy Supercross 5 has now added classic two-stroke bikes alongside their usual 450 and 250 classes.
This is a great addition that will please long time fans of the game and bike lovers by adding some extra diversity to the bike selection which can lead to dream races.
A lot of the bikes aren’t available from the get-go, so players will have to put in a hefty grind to unlock them all. Hopefully, this will lead to Milestone adding more classic bikes in the form of DLC or in future games.
Verdict
Monster Energy Supercross: The Official Videogame 5 has certainly made the game the most accessible in the series allowing newcomers to not feel too overwhelmed.
But the game still feels very much like its predecessor with most of the modes only featuring subtle tweaks.
Monster Energy Supercross: The Official Videogame 5 is out now for Xbox Series X, Series S, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One and PlayStation 5
