Supercross 3D

"The game designers should feel ashamed."

I find it funny that there are even names on the credits page for the manual of Super Cross 3D. If I had a hand in this abysmal game, I would not want anyone to know. This review is for you Vince Zampella and to you Faran Thomason. I'll try and find some sort of saving grace for your game.

Controls
I am just going to come out and say it, the controls suck. Unless you like to inadvertently crash your motorcycle at the most inopportune time, you will hate the controls as well. At times it feels like your controller isn't even plugged in. To say the controls are "sluggish" would be a praise. If you get too close to the edge of the track, you are going to crash. If you try to do a trick in the air, you will crash when you land. If you try to turn a corner, chances are, you will turn too soon or too late and crash again. Don't feel too bad though. After a crash the game puts you slightly ahead of where you crashed so you will finish......eventually.... Who ever had the bright idea to put 180 degree turns one after another should be shot. It is nigh on impossible to round them all without hitting the side. At least the throttle button is responsive... sort of.... Sometimes out of the starting gate, you sit for 5-10 seconds before your bike crashes for some weird reason. The controls are worse than that of Checkered Flag.

Score 0

Game Play
Well, this is one of those overdone mud motorcycle games. I know it has a real name but that is irrelevant. The manual makes it sound more fun than the game really is (and that is poorly written too). You have several types of game play, you can practice (which you will need to do), just have a single race, or do a tournament mode where you race through all 14 look-a-like- tracks. You can also save in tournament mode and return at any time (if you are smart, you won't return ever). Tournament mode is probably the best mode since you get to race against the computer players. You also get to choose your bike (which doesn't seem to make much difference) as well as your name and nationality. I do not see any reason for nationality as all the races are in the US. There isn't much originality here. The only thing that may keep you interested is the crashing. It's obvious that the designers had to do something to cover up horrible controls so they had to put crash replays into the game play. You can replay every crash you do as well as the last five that you did (just pause and press 1 - 5 on the number pad). I actually thought as I was playing the game "Was Atari so cheap that they didn't hire anyone to test this game before they started production?" Phil B. Geber is credited with being the lead tester (and only tester). He must have not showed up for work on the one day this game feels like it was produced. I don't know what they were thinking here, but whatever it was, it wasn't pretty.

Score 1

Graphics
Hey, finally something that doesn't fully, 100% suck. There is a frame rate issue which is very noticeable but at least everything is visible. It seems to me that there is some major slowdown just to get everything working in sync. The directly behind your racer view is bad. You can only see directly in front of you and not around the 180 degree corners. Maybe if the backed up the view about 6-8 feet the controls wouldn't be so bad. One real bad thing here is that every track looks virtually identical. There is no difference in texture, color, or even shape of the courses. The corners and jumps are in different places but are the same height, length and number. It really feels like the designers cut corners. A lot of corners.

Score 2

Sounds and Music
I have never liked video game music except for a few rare exceptions, and this game is not a rare exception. The music is below average, but above total crap. It isn't catchy but doesn't stick in your head either. The music is very generic and was obviously fabricated by a computer. I don't know if it would be fair to say it could be better because of all the other crap in this game. The music is the best factor of the game, and that is a sad, sad, sad revelation.

Score 3

Overall, don't bother. This game is good for one thing and one thing only: to be used as an example on why someone might think the Jaguar's library was bad. That's it. Bad. Horrible. Terrible. Worthless. Bleh.

Pros:
None

Cons:
1. Bad control
2. Bad Graphics
3. Boring Game play
4. Below Average Sound

Overall Score 1.5 rounded down = 1

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 01/04/06