Review

"Oh, give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above. Don't fence me in! Let me ride through the wide open country that I love. Don't fence me in!"

Ok, so there aren't any starry skies in Motocross Madness, just sunny ones. Come to think of it, that's really too bad - some nighttime racing would have really put this game over the top. Oh well. Never mind that. Motocross Madness is fun. Period. There's something about being able to tear across wide open terrain that really strikes a chord with me. By far the most enjoyable parts of this game for me were the stunt quarries and the Baja cross country races. The Nationals and Indoor Supercross have thus far just proved frustrating for me. There is a unique, challenging, and decidedly arcade-ish physics model underneath which is preventing me from achieving any sort of success on the tracks for some reason; though it doesn't stop me from having a grand ol' time with the stunts and the baja races. I would definitely like to be able to adjust the AI difficulty, but unfortunately the game offers no such opportunity. I think that might be the only significant deficiency in the game.

Motocross Madness is a bit sterile, though this is clearly due to the fact that most of the engine's polygon budget (circa 1998) is spent on the unbroken, rolling terrain, leaving little left over for anything else. Though I don't (yet) own it, I suspect that Motocross Madness 2 is a better game in almost every way. This is likely one of those instances where there is essentially no reason to own the first game in the series. Without thinking too hard, another example is Age of Empires and it's uniformly improved sequel, Age of Empires II. If you like the kind of gameplay provided, just skip to the sequel and commence with the fun. You're not missing out on anything by not playing the original. Again, I haven't played Motocross Madness 2 yet, but it sure looks like it's basically Motocross Madness, only better.

The wide-open, high-flying racing provided by Motocross Madness made such an immediately positive impression as a concept, that I ran out and got Rainbow Studios' PS2 offering, ATV Offroad Fury. Again, the game is fun. Period.

I'm likely not going to spend any more time with Motocross Madness, but not because it's a bad game. Rather, I'll just go pick up Motocross Madness 2, anticipating it to be a better game. This is the 'luxury' I have when I don't play games until 4 years after they're released.