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Jeremy McGrath Supercross World

Developer: Acclaim Studios Salt Lake

Publisher: Acclaim Max Sports

Console: GameCube

Genre: Extreme Sports

Number of Players: 2

Released: February 26, 2002

Memory Card Blocks: ?

Introduction

Well I decided to rent this game even though all the reviews I read for it said it was one of the worst games on the GameCube so far. I really thought the little intro movie was pretty good looking. To my surprise it actually asks you which memory card slot you want to save/load to. I don’t believe any other GameCube game does this! There is also very short load times like most GameCube games.

Graphics: 4/10

The graphics are very under whelming considering the mighty power of the GameCube. I think that the graphics could be the worst that the GameCube will have in its lifetime. I do like the look of the skies though. The skies were however lacking the ever-present lens flare which is a staple of most racing games. The levels are very big but have hardly anything in the levels. I even found a little table that I was allowed to break through the table and make it fall over, but I still freaking crashed.

Surprisingly it has a good frame rate. Of course since the graphics don’t have much detail its no surprise it has a good frame rate. Although it slows down a little in 2-player mode. All the bikes look the same, except they change colors. The dirt effects that the bikes kick up as they go are decent. I found out if you drive on a plane, the rider still kicks up the dirt effects. That is unacceptable. Amazingly this game has pop-up. I thought pop-up in games would disappear on the GameCube. I thought wrong.

Sound: 7/10

This game features one hell of a soundtrack. The best licensed video game soundtrack I have ever heard and I hope it’s a sign of things to come. Dry Kill Logic, Sevendust, Vision Of Disorder, and Stuck Mojo are the standouts. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the sound in the game. The sound effects are average at best. There is no announcer in this game at all. The only time you hear the crowd is when you pull off a stunt. You know when the other riders crash as you will hear a little grunt.

Gameplay: 4/10

This game has real super cross riders such as Jeremy McGrath and Travis Pastrana. Each rider has four different stats: stability, cornering, jumping, and stunt skill. It features 25 different courses spread over four events: baja, indoor, outdoor, and freestyle. The career mode is the meat of the game where you start out at a skill level of 1. As you win races you can add to your skill levels and unlock more courses. There is also a single event mode where you can drive on any level that you have unlocked so far. Also on each course are five different bonuses you can attempt to accomplish during the race. The bonuses give the game some replay value and I don’t believe other super cross games have this feature. If you change the default settings you wont be able to get any bonuses though. The tricks are really hard to get it to actually perform the stunt you want. The only thing I liked was if you perform the same stunts over and over again, the judges would deduct points from the amount that you received for the stunt. The more tricks you do, the more turbo’s you get. Although most of the time there is not enough room to use a turbo unless you want to go off the track.

Also the collision detection is a little odd. Even though it appears that you will land the jump, you still crash. If another racer barely bumps into you, you automatically crash. Sometimes in the middle of a jump, you will crash and fall to the ground without doing anything wrong. Very frustrating. The worst thing about this game is that it won’t allow you to take shortcuts. You get 3 seconds while off the track and then you are resetted back on the track. Sometimes when you take a shortcut and then go back on the correct road it will say you are going the wrong way. It resets your bike back where you originally took the shortcut on so it takes away the point of even attempting a shortcut. There are 3 difficulty levels in this game: amateur, pro, and hardcore.

Controls: 3/10

The controls are dreadful! To drive is pretty simple just hold the A button and use the control stick to steer. To power slide around corners you have to use the R button. The power sliding is un-realistic as you just slide around corners and you never once have to use brakes in this game because of it. The real problem is with the stunts. You have to take your thumb off the gas and press either the X or Y button and then hitting the control stick in different ways making the stunts really hard to do. The Z button is used for turbo. You can preload your jumps so that you get more air to clear some of the gaps and to have more time to do stunts. Of course I did not know what the preloading button was until I accidentally hit the L button right before a jump. The manual doesn't even explain it and you really need to use it if you want to beat the game. You can also move the camera around using the C-stick but after you let go it resets to the original position.

Replay: 6/10

Well there is a 25 tracks to keep you playing to unlock them all, but the game is so not fun you will probably give up before you unlock them all! There are virtually no extras in the game. No FMV videos of the different racers, and no track or character editor, and no instant replay. It supports a 2-player mode but its pretty much the same and only 4 riders total on the track at once! I guess you could try to get all the bonuses on every level to extend the replay value.

Conclusion

This was obviously not a well put together game. The game froze on me numerous times and even hitting the reset button on the console wouldn’t work. On the baja mode, I tried to go out of bounds where the map stops and as soon as I did, the bike and the rider were thrown into the air and flown all the way back to the beginning of the level! In one of the stunt tracks there are barrels to knock over & a row of busses to jump over. That was about the most fun I had with this game. Since it’s the only super cross game on GameCube so far, rent it if you must. Please don’t buy it, because you will regret it! I suggest waiting until MX Superfly comes out in June. They should have called this game Jeremy McGrath Glitch fest World!

Pros Cons

Big air on jumps Glitchy as hell

First dirt bike title for GameCube Ugly textures

Great Soundtrack Port of a PS2 game

Looks for slot B memory card Pop up

Bad controls

Final Score: 5/10, 50%, F

Reviewed by: Eric Brown on May 21, 2002

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