MUD FIM Motocross World Championship - Playstation Vita - Gameplay

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• published: 19 May 2015
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Gameplay video of the PS Vita port of MUD FIM Motocross World Championship. This one shows most of the game modes and features for this title. Please note I’ve edited out most loading times, and races are cut short, as I am to simply show the variety of races, modes, and courses. Enjoy. Mud FIM Motocross World Championship for the Vita is a game destined to be overlooked, and was pretty much all out ignored by both the gaming press and community at large. This is a crying shame, as MUD deserves to have been played by more people. A lot more people. The dirt bike genre has never been massive. Heck, even I, as someone who owns a dirt bike (a Suzuki DRZ 400sm, if you’re wondering), I’ve only played one other (Motocross Madness 2, about a decade ago). The reason for this unfortunate circumstance is that Motocross sims are actually a lot more unique than most in the racing genre out there. Not being set on predominantly flat surfaces, but on tracks full of bumps and jumps at every turn, the ability to maintain balance is key, as opposed to memorising cornering, as is the case with most other racers. Make no mistake; this genre is deceptively deeper than you think. MUD attempts to give more of an arcade experience but with a career mode that adds variety and an element of RPG elements, or so they proudly state on the back of the box. You can increase the stats of not only your biker (in World Tour mode), but also change what clothing, sponsors, tricks, and power-ups you bring with you. Races are, from what I’ve seen thus far, placed into five categories; standard race, Elimination, Checkpoint Race, head-to-head, and perhaps the most unique, Trick Battle. Overall, there’s a lot of fun to be had here. Gameplay itself is tight. Unless you’re seasoned at these games, it’ll take some getting used to.Official mode has bikers at maxed out stats hence are not only fast, but cornering can be sensitive and takes time to get used to. Or, choose ‘MUD World Tour’, bikers beginat the bottom, perform slower, and lack stability or the ability to perform scrubs at ease. Scrubs is a kind of jump, where canceling moments before hitting ground gets you a speed boost. Fail to do so however, you crash, resulting in lost time, and perhaps frustration. Getting a perfect landing on scrubs can be the difference between winning a race or not, especially the more challenging head-to-head racers. They're easy to mess up, so are a bit of a gamble. It's a pretty clever system. This leads me to my first main gripe: the A.I. Even on the easiest modes, rarely messes up on scrubs or corners, whilst you on the other hand will be crashing and falling left, right and centre. The A.I. is almost too perfect. One way the game attempts to mitigate this is through the fizzy drink power up (seen on the bottom right) which, if you drink after falling, performs a speed boost to get you back on your way. However, they compensate little for the near-perfect A.I. Not only that, but the enemy is HARD. I’m not an expert at these games, sure, but I’m pretty certain most here aren’t going to be pros either. This game will also require you to play races over and over for first place, or to make enough winnings to unlock new races or to upgrade your character(s). There are a large variety of well designed courses, which I'm guessing are all fantasy. To win even some of the earlier races will require memorisation of at least the trickier jumps and bumpy parts of the courses. And this is also where the game really shines. It’s hard to appreciate on the Vita’s small screen, but the graphics and detail in this game is stunning. I’ve never noticed frame rate drops, and the scenery is both imaginative, colourful, detailed, and with a number of moving objects. This is no shoddy port. A lot of care and attention was put into making this version. And this is again why it’s such a crying shame. Surely Black Bean Games must’ve known very few were going to invest in this Vita version. And yet they still put out a top-quality title. Black Bean Games, I salute you! What else is there to say…? Oh, yes, the music. Not much to say really. There aren’t many tracks, and none of them really interested me. HOWEVER, this is one of those Vita games allows you to play your own music using the Vita’s MP3 player. Score! Loading before races are between 14 - 19 seconds. They've been cut out of this video in all but one race, so show the average length. Overall, they're not offensively long. It’s also worth noting there WAS online multiplayer for this game, but when I try logging one, I get an account authentication error. Not had this with any other game, so I may assume the game no longer supports online *shrugs* If you’re fed up of your usual and looking for a change of pace, MUD could very well be the game you’re looking for. I would recommend this to anyone that doesn’t completely despite racers.