Which would you choose—an 11-foot-tall, methanol-powered beast that can backflip, or a stainless steel Tesla triangle that wants to eat your fingers—if you were looking for an absurdly large, American truck that does not run on conventional fuel and looks ridiculous? I am not sure which one I would pick. If my loved ones are going to make fun of me for having a vehicle that does not look very serious, it will be because it is outfitted like a creepy pirate.
A similar amount of devotion is given to these five-ton doofuses shaped like dinosaurs and dogs in Monster Jam Showdown. Although it has a tiny scope, developer Milestone has given this family-friendly racing a fun driving experience emphasizing drifting, various stunts, and powerful damage effects.
The generally lackluster Steel Titans games‘ open-world strategy is dropped in Monster Jam Showdown. Although I do not miss it, somebody who enjoyed running around those broad spaces in between carefully planned activities could find this to be disappointing.
Despite their appearance, Showdown’s maps are not open planets with races and events strewn all over them. The map screens might have just been an ordered list or a bar of event thumbnails; Showdown gains nothing by making us go between maps and zoom in on individual maps to find the next event that is accessible. It seems like a time waster.
Similar to 2020’s Monster Truck Championship and Steel Titans
On the other hand, the driving sensation is excellent. Having all the handling aids deactivated was pleasant to me, and I relish the feeling of launching these massive cars into slides and watching them squat back and powerslide around curves while applying the throttle. Showdown shares the same independent rear-wheel steering system as Steel Titans and the 2020 Monster Truck Championship, which is operated by the right stick. With this kind of racer, it is a major differentiator, and mastering it adds a highly fulfilling element to racing.
However, when he gained confidence in using the right stick to whip around tight corners, my 10-year-old felt more at ease with some of the assists. In particular, he enjoyed the steering aid, which automatically applies an angle to the rear wheels and allows him to exert a little more control over his vehicle. Splitscreen has been successful; if he is losing and smiling, that is usually a good indication that something is working.
Crush Hour
Although conventional driving is grounded in some truth, the stunt controls provide us complete control over how the truck rotates while in the air. Even if the stunt arenas lack realism, it is still a lot of fun to put together long, Tony Hawk-esque combos. Building and maintaining a combo should be quite easy for someone with a lot of racing expertise, and earning big scores was not too difficult. However, some of the actions do call for some skill, such as perfectly timing a nose wheelie and moonwalking your truck backward.
The way trucks interact with crushed cars is one obvious flaw; they crash into and bounce off of them far too forcefully. It seemed to go against the idea of monster trucks and instead made me want to avoid them rather than squash them.
Beneath the standard AI setting, there are two tiers of difficulty: simple and extremely easy. Showdown does appear appropriate for the crowd, which will inevitably comprise extremely young participants who are merely watching Grave Digger perform donuts.
Big Truck Hunter
Showdown features forty trucks, many of which are making their video game debuts. This includes custom vehicles such as Bad Company, which is beautifully replicated in-game and has a full holographic wrap. The most recent iteration of the monster truck, Excaliber, which has been in production since the 1980s, makes its premiere in Showdown as well. All of the trucks have the same driving experience, but my personal favorite is Excaliber because of its vintage paint job and square, boxy Chevy body shell, which has several vintage KC Daylighters arranged on the roof.
The attention to detail is astounding, even down to the minute details like the paint scuffs on the chassis’ rear from wheelies standing up. These kinds of details give them the impression of being actual race cars rather than large toys. Damage is also easily understood since parts of the trucks’ fiberglass skins flake off.
Bonus liveries and buffs can be unlocked and applied, and the buffs usually give specific trucks higher multipliers for certain tricks. This is a good strategy to get us to trade places, especially if you are trying to find a way to gain an advantage to accomplish one of Showdown’s several side goals during the matches. Winning is one thing, but frequently you will also need to accomplish a designated trick to accrue a certain number of points.
That being said, there is not much else available to fully engross you in the workings of the genuine motorsport that is monster truck competition. That is where the Monster Truck Championship is still by itself. Showdown would have profited from having a unique truck system, at the very least. Perhaps a variety of unpainted basic pickup shells that could be mounted on a typical chassis? After all, Milestone’s fantastic Hot Wheels Unleashed games already feature a great, functional livery editor.
A structure that more accurately depicts Monster Jam as a traveling show may have been preferable to a simple list of things to cover. Showdown has a little over 120 events, which are divided between short head-to-head stages, circuit races, and freestyle arena activities. Events are usually brief, lasting only a few minutes.
Verdict
In contrast to the previous 20 years of officially sanctioned Monster Jam games, Monster Jam Showdown offers a respectable, but limited, dose of monster truck chaos. It is an attractive, family-friendly racer that feels fantastic to launch off huge jumps, but it lacks variation on the tracks and begs for further customization and a more extensive career mode.
