MXGP 2020: The Official Motocross Game Review – Mud, Sweat & Tears

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MXGP 2020 comes from the developer and publisher Milestone S.R.L. who also developed Ride, Moto GP, Monster energy supercross and WRC. Here you can ride to victory and win the MXGP Championship with your favourite bike and sponsors backing you. Victory doesn’t come easy as you slip around on the mud in all kind of weather conditions.  MXGP 2020 is available on Playstation, Xbox and PC.  I’m excited, are you?

MXGP 2020 – Let’s get dirty!

Gameplay

MXGP 2020 is touted as “the official motocross videogame” and it slides in with a huge itinerary of motocross fun.  With 68 riders of both MXGP and MX2 fame along with 19 global circuits that were featured in the 2020 racing season, you are certainly in for some muddy fun.

Starting off with the career mode, here you start off as a rookie in the world of Motocross.  You can either join an official team or create your own if you fancy.  Once you have selected your favourite bike and have that oh so important sponsorship deal you begin to live the challenge of racing through the official 2020 season.

MXGP 2020
What a ride you are in for!

There is a lot to customise on your bike, if you so dare, such as the suspension, gear ratio, brake response, accelerator mapping and wheelbase for the more advanced rider. Similar to Ride 4, you can change the weather to sunny or rainy, allowing you to decide what you like and what is the best racing conditions for you.

The motocross bikes that are available in the game are amazing, when racing it feels brilliant as you can almost feel the tyres slipping from under you on the wet surface. With haptic feedback on the ps5 controller, you could feel yourself riding over every bump and braking on every turn. I found it difficult at first to land some of the jumps perfectly, as on some of the tracks there is a jump just on a corner and If you don’t land it perfectly you will fall off. The condition of each track is different with the weather changing, sometimes you can have puddles that make it even more slippy to ride through and sometimes it is sunny and the track is dry, which believe me still has its own set of difficulties to overcome as you are riding.

While you are racing you can use the rewind mode to help you if you crash or if you’re just about to cross the finish line.  This is especially handy if you’re showing off by pulling a wheely and you fall just short. Maybe it’s a good idea not to show off in front of the crowd. If you decide to use the rewind feature, you will notice at the end of the race a certain amount of credits and XP will be reduced from your overall total. It’s probably best to try and get a clean race.

The photo mode is available in all of the game modes, so you’ll be able to get that perfect picture of you crossing the finish line just in time or falling off. There are many different filters to make your picture look that much better.  Needless to say, photo mode is great. For example, with the filters, you can have a mud-filled, dusty or wet screen effect. The styles of the photo can be changed to make it look like a vintage photograph or even as if a professional photographer had taken it for you.

With the next-gen upgrade, you’ll get up to 4k resolution, the best gameplay and performances, dual sense support, reduced loading times and an increased number of bikes in multiplayer.

MXGP 2020
Please land this, please

At the menu screen you will find many more game modes to test your riding ability in MXGP 2020.  As well as the career mode you have a Grand Prix mode that allows you to select your rider from those available along with your desired track to see if you can dominate and win the race.  Should you fancy more than one race then there is the Championship mode which offers you a similar experience to Grand Prix but set across multiple races using the tracks that you select.

If racing against opponents is getting too much for you then there is the time attack mode.  Once again you can select your rider, bike and track before setting off to conquer the best lap time.  Perfect for when your friends are finally allowed to come over and play!

MXGP 2020 allows you to create your own track, giving you hours upon hours of endless gameplay should you enjoy the idea of constructing your own dirt course.  Added to the game this year is the ability to construct the track of your dreams through hills and mountains, thanks to the new heightmap ability.  You can share your creations online as well as download other player’s concoctions.  I can see this being great fun!

Should you want to take your dirt bike and just freely roam around then you are in luck.  Another cool feature on MXGP 2020 is Playground.  This time playground is set in the expansive Norwegian fjords. Here you can carve out your own path as well as place waypoints around the map to create your own race. Complete the path you created and share online so others can try it out and see if they can beat your time. There are races and time attacks already in the playground world for you to complete. Make sure to utilize the photo mode and take full advantage of the scenery as you are riding around!

To make your experience of Motocross even better, after day one it has been promised that there will be new features added to MXGP 2020.

The ability to play co-op in the playground so that you can ride and race with friends to a customised track sounds very appealing as does the Race Director mode.  Here you can create, race and stream your very own exciting online challenges incorporating various camera angles as well as allowing you to decide the fate of the race.

MXGP 2020
The views are amazing in playground

Graphics & Audio

The ps5 version of MXGP 2020 looks phenomenal, as you would expect from the next-gen consoles. Mud flying and hitting your screen as if it was hitting you, gives you the real race feel. The look of the bikes their self is amazing it feels like you could almost be working and altering the bike yourself. The attention to detail from the grip on the handlebars to the grip on the tyres is amazing.

As you are riding your motocross bike the movement of the rider is very realistic, and having ridden a motocross bike myself it was a great representation of the actual thing.  The look of both the bike and the rider as you jump is brilliant, you can see the mud flying off the tyres while in the air.  The scenery is fantastic but don’t stare at it for too long!

The game doesn’t have a soundtrack as such, but the main menu has few beats that will ease you as you choose your game mode. The crowd will shout as you pass them, and scream at you while you are flying past trying to be number one. The real sounds of the engine will make you feel like your sitting on the bike itself.

I found the weather aspect of the game brilliant. The puddles left on corners looked amazing and the feel as you rode to them was brilliant you could feel the bike slipping underneath you.

Longevity

Depending on the settings you decide to use in career mode, you could get it all done in a day sitting. You can choose to have qualifying and races or just have races and no qualifying. There are other game modes to take up your time. You could spend hours in playground creating your own paths through the hills or free-roaming with a friend. Depending on how much you love racing games would decide on the amount of time you put into MXGP 2020. Online multiplayer will give the game an undefined total of time as you can carry on racing for as long as you like and with new modes getting added you will surely be putting a lot of time into MXGP2020.

MXGP 2020
The menu is easy to navigate through

Final Thoughts

I found playing this game very fun and I look forward to the content in the future. the new venue in playgrounds mode is brilliant. Being able to create my own pathway through all of the beautiful scenery was a pleasure. I can’t wait to play playgrounds with a friend and explore all of the different options. The career mode is fun and has a lot of customization for the bike. Although I found I did do a few things wrong to my bike. So it’s best to do a little research into the customization before actually doing it.

The upgrade to next-gen has definitely made this game a whole lot better from previous generations and the haptic feedback of the ps5 controller was brilliant, you can really feel the tension of the throttle. I give MXGP 2020 a gold award. If there was a little more customization into the rider then I definitely would have given it a platinum award.

Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.

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