When I first found out about Monster Truck Championship from developers TEYON and publishers NACON, my instant thought was, “how will this game differ from the Monster Jam official game Steel Titans that released last year?” It turns out, the two games are wildly different and both enjoyable for their individual reasons. That said, the game definitely isn’t without its flaws, so let’s get into the breakdown of why I recommend this title a bit more than I would the former monster truck game.

Gameplay

Right off the bat, you can see the difference in this game as it offers no open-world style area for driving around and just freeplay driving. At first, I thought this was a downside, but honestly, it’s not. You can also go into a single event match and edit the options so that you can just have fun or actually try to complete a challenge. These single events are a great way to practice, but without the option of local multiplayer, I tend to just go into actual events instead.

Before you get into your first event though, I recommend going straight into the customization menu. While pretty much everything will still be locked, there is the option to tune your truck to however you see fit. This can be done with no in-game funds necessary and is changeable at any time, plus you can have the truck tuned for the different events so you don’t have to use the same torques for freestyle as you would a race. This is probably the coolest feature this game offers because it really changes how the vehicle controls, so if you are a drifter and donut spinner when it comes to the destruction and freestyle events, you can have the car fine-tuned just for that while having the handling more controlled for your racing and drag racing truck without having to constantly visit the customization menu! This menu is a game-changer and it was really noticeable since I went into my first event before checking this out and could barely control my truck, but after tuning it to better fit my style I was practically unbeatable!

Now that your truck is set up for your preferred control style, head over to the events and see the first option they give you. This first event has no entry fee and a small prize. After you complete this event, another will unlock for you to access and it will feature your first entry fee. From here on, every time you complete an event and earn points for that league, you will unlock another event to choose and play through. Each event features a preset of events that will take place with the minimal event count being three and they will be in set locations. While you may end up visiting the same stadiums over the course of these events, there are actually quite a few different locations that these events can take place at. Each league will have two handfuls of regular events and then a grand event at the end which you will have to win in order to unlock the next league, with each league getting gradually harder to compete in.

Another unique thing that I liked about this game is how they added some passive assistance that is up to the player to choose. By this, I mean that you will be able to build a crew with each member having their own pro’s and con’s to bring to the table. Initially, you will only get to pick two crew members, but as you progress through the series more slots become available. These crew members range from managers to mechanics, so make sure you put together the best crew to help you grow at your rate.

Alongside putting together a crew, you will be able to sign up for sponsorship contracts. There will usually be a few options to choose from, but once you pick a sponsorship, you can’t back out of it until the contract is complete. These sponsorships will have a specific set of challenges to complete and a limited number of events to complete them. If you are successful in completing your end of the sponsorship contract, you will receive the listed reward which tends to be funds and truck parts unlocked.

After you play through a few events and complete a few sponsorships, it would be worth going into the customization menu again to see how you can deck out your truck. While you can use the funds you earned to unlock specific options early, be sure to check through the whole listings as you unlock items through gameplay. They don’t move all available options to the front and instead just leave the list stationary while just making unlocked options selectable.

Visuals

I think the graphics are perfectly set in the middle of being completely realistic and just cartoonistic. They did a great job giving enough detail to both the environments and the trucks to make this monster truck simulator really put you in the action without taking you away from reality at the same time.

Sounds

While all the sound effects are pretty spot on and the music during the events are enjoyable, I didn’t care for how the music and sounds cut when you go into a loading screen. Not only did the music and sounds have a hard cutoff, but the loading screen music is also this soft-sounding tune that just doesn’t fit the atmosphere. Nobody wants elevator music on their way to high intensity, adrenaline-fueled, engine roaring action!

Replayability

No matter how long you have been playing the game, the events themselves don’t get much easier. You get an improved truck and your skills will get better along the way, but you can always go into an old event and find yourself slightly challenged by the opponents. And even if you start finding the older events to be easy, there will be no point in time where the later events will be easy as well. There is plenty of room for replayability here, it just depends on how skilled you are and how hard of a challenge you are looking to face against really.

What Could Be Better

This game has an online multiplayer, but no local multiplayer. Why wouldn’t it have a local multiplayer and why does the online multiplayer only offer both racing and drag racing? You have all of the events at your disposal and you choose to limit players so harshly when it comes to playing together. This should have been a much more open multiplayer title where you could have at least two players play locally on a split-screen when it comes to racing and then both multiplayer styles could feature the other game modes as I am more than sure that players would be willing to wait their turn to do freestyle or destruction in hopes of beating the other player’s score. This can still be added in a future update and I hope the developers strongly consider opening the multiplayer options for the players.

I think it would be more audibly appeasing for the rock-style music to just simply play throughout the game. From the menu to the events, load screens included, just have one big rock-heavy soundtrack that players nonstop. The hard cuts to the loading screens were like a record scratching as the needly is yanked off an active soundboard, and not in a cool DJ beat drop kind of way.

Conclusion

Monster Truck Championship really puts you in the midst of the high-octane entertainment! I really enjoyed customizing and playing as my own monster truck driver, fighting my way to the top of each event leaderboard, and don’t plan on stopping my journey through the rankings just yet. If I had to pick just one monster truck game to play, this one would probably end up being my recommended choice just because of how they handled the events and overall better physics to go along with the gameplay too. It’s definitely a lot of fun and something fans of Monster Jam would easily enjoy!