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MX Superfly

Developer: Pacific Coast Power & Light Co.

Publisher: THQ

Console: GameCube

Genre: Extreme Sports

Number of Players: 2

Released: June 24, 2002

Memory Card Blocks: 8

Introduction

Here comes the second dirt-bike title on the GameCube. After the abysmal Jeremy McGrath Supercross World, dirt-bike fans were hoping that MX Superfly would be better. I am glad to say that it is in fact better then I could have ever imagined. Even rivaling the great Excitebike 64 in terms of the fun factor.

Graphics: 9/10

The graphics are really good. The graphics engine is running off of Renderware and PCP & L Co. did a great job for the most part. The game environments are the highlight of the graphics. They are very huge and have absolutely no pop-up what so ever! There are quite a few animated objects in the background like planes, helicopters, and hot-air balloons. There is a lot of detail put into each level. There are buffaloes alongside the race in one level and the city level features a lot of buildings that look great. The downside is the trees, they are badly pixilated and look like there were cut out of a Playstation game from 1996! Yuck! The dirt textures in this game are flat out amazing! I’m guessing they are bump-mapped because as you race you can see individual rocks that are in the dirt. It looks very real compared to most games dirt that is only a brown color with no detail.

The frame rate is rock solid. The game is a running a little slow though at 30 frames per second compared to the ideal 60 frames per second that I’m used to in other games. Also every time a rider wins the race it causes the frame rate to hitch for a couple seconds, but it doesn’t affect the game play unless you are about to land from a jump. There is an impressive 10 riders on the screen at one time also. The riders are also detailed very well. You can even give your rider a name and it will have the name show up on the back of his jersey along with a number of your choosing. The bikes themselves are nice looking also. Although the animations of the rider are a little jerky when they crash. The shadows are good as they change as your race around the level, but the shadows are really blocky and suffer from clipping.

Sound: 8.5/10

This game features one of the better soundtrack‘s out there. Featuring punk, rap, rock, and a couple metal songs. This is always a strong point of many extreme sports games. Spineshank, Hoobastank, Hotwire, and The Coup are the standouts. Luckily you have the option of turning off any song that happens to annoy you. The sound effects are decent. All the usual sounds that are in every other dirt-bike game are here. Each surface you ride over features a different sound effect. Unfortunately the announcer in the game is pretty non-existent. He chimes in with some comments at the beginning of a race. During the race he is pretty quiet though, every once in a while he will yell out something after an awesome stunt is completed. The crowd is pretty quiet and you never really hear them.

Gameplay: 9/10

This game has 27 real pro riders and is the only game to feature Ricky Carmichael. The game has 6 modes of play. The main mode is of course the career mode. You can either do a race career or a freestyle career. You get to start out from scratch and basically build yourself a character. After that you have to earn enough cash by competing in tutorials or actual races until you have enough money and then you can enter the amateur races. After that you earn more cash and then enter the pro races. Let there be one point made that this is definitely not an easy game at all. In fact at times it is almost too hard and you will want to throw your controller against the wall. Exhibition and Freestyle mode is where you can race all of the levels that you have unlocked so far. The other 3 modes (Mini-Game, Track Editor, and Multi-player) will be discussed in the replay section of the review.

In order to get first place in this game you will have to be able to pre-load your jumps so you get enough air to clear the other jumps. Sometimes it appears that no matter what I did I would still not be able to smoothly jump from one ramp to the other. While you are in the air you have a lot of different stunts you can pull off. Since you get so much air, pulling off a suicidal double front flip is pretty easy to do and looks great! This game definitely features the most air off jumps and even beats out Excitebike 64. The collision detection is very good and if you are in the right position you can land almost any kind of insane jump with ease. I was disappointed that the game doesn't allow short cuts. If you try to go for a short cut after about 4 seconds you will automatically bail. Very disappointing!

Controls: 8/10

The controls for the most part are pretty good. You control your bike with the control stick. A-button is the gas, B-button is the brake and reverse and the Z-button is used for powerslides around corners. Also while you are powersliding you can press the B-button to help you make it around the corners easier and not lose as much speed. You can change the camera by pressing the d-pad. The L-button is your clutch and it can be used at the beginning of a race to get a little boost or if you hold it around a corner and then let it go you get a little boost also. The R-button is the preload button that you have to time just right as you go off a ramp to get big air.

Doing the actual stunts after you are in the air is where the controls get confusing. In order to even attempt a stunt you have to hold the R-button down and press one of the 4 stunt buttons (A, B, X, or Y). Honestly I can’t even figure out how to do the 3 button combos where you have to hold down two buttons and then press one. I don’t think it was a wise decision to have one of the stunt buttons use the A-button because that is the gas and it gets confusing really fast. Also if you hold down the L, R, and Z buttons at one time it is an automatic bail. If you are used to the EA Big titles (SSX Tricky & NBA Street) then it will take a while to get used to not pressing all three buttons at the same time.

Replay: 8.5/10

This game has a lot of replay value. It features an impressive 22 different tracks and a bunch of mini-games. There is even a bunch of different challenges to complete on each level that will get you special trophies. After winning a Race career you are treated to an FMV of some highlights. You can go into the trophy list and view them however many times you want to. Also there is a preview movie of the upcoming Hot Wheels game and it looks like it’s going to be an awesome game! The track editor is a pretty good addition to the game and will eat up a lot of hours creating you own tracks. You can even put some trucks in there so you can jump over them. The multi-player modes are very good. You can challenge a friend in the race or freestyle courses and the frame rate is a little slower, but still pretty good. The best part is the 11 different mini games that the game features. Most of them are really fun. My personal favorite is the Bus Jump and Step Up.

Conclusion

This game was definitely a pleasant surprise. Finally the GameCube has its first good dirt-bike game. Surprisingly, GameCube is looking to be a dirt-bike fans dream with the great MX Superfly and coming soon is Freekstyle from EA Big and Big Air Freestyle from Paradigm! If you are a dirt-bike fan, you have to at least give this game a rent and maybe even buy it, its that damn good! MX Superfly is with out a doubt the best dirt-bike game on any of the next generation consoles!

Pros Cons

Big air on jumps No shortcuts

A lot of replay value Game play is a little slow

No pop up Difficulty is hard

Great dirt textures Stunt controls are confusing

Good Soundtrack

Final Score: 8.75/10, 88%, B+

Reviewed by: Eric Brown on July 13, 2002

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