When it comes to televised entertainment monster trucks was my first love. The gigantic machines like Bigfoot, Carolina Crusher & Grave Digger running over cars became a staple of my childhood. Of course I wanted my love for monster trucks and my growing enthusiasm for gaming to blend together, but the quality rarely proved high. While there were some exceptions to the rule of monster truck games being terrible like “Monster Truck Madness” on the PC, my hope of having that epic monster truck experience on a gaming console seemed impossible. Rainbow Studios & THQ Nordic come together alongside the Monster Jam license to put some of the biggest names in modern day monster truck racing in an environments both real & fictional. I was excited to find out if they could capture all the car-crushing, wild-jumping action that made my youth associated with twisted steel & vehicles resembling various animals.
Did I Complete “Monster Jam: Steel Titans”?
“Monster Jam: Steel Titans” does a great job at appearing beefy at first glance, but it’s truly a hollow experience especially in regards to completion. The game immediately thrusts the player into its tutorial upon loading up for the first time (a tutorial that was impossible to complete on the PS4 disc version pre-patch due to a glitch where the truck couldn’t perform a backflip as required) before producing two main categories of play to choose from: “Quick Play” and “Career Mode”. “Quick Play” is as expected with the player being able to take part in a variety of low-stakes, one-off events like head-to-head racing or “Timed Destruction”. “Career” is treated as a grand prix full of races both in stadiums and on the open world used as the game’s main hub. “Career Mode” features no type of story with an increasing level of difficulty usually associated with the game’s mechanics and less about the AI (though the AI can prove upsetting as it seems to feature the most perfect drivers who don’t suffer from the same technical issues as the player). “Career Mode” completion can take upwards of ten hours in the least, but the real grind comes from attaining the fifty collectibles and unlocking all the trucks – both that proved too time consuming and admittedly boring due to unexpected grinding.
Did “Monster Jam: Steel Titans” Live Up to the Hype?
“Monster Jam: Steel Titans” doesn’t lie to the player by trying to present itself as a simulator, going with a more arcade approach right down the presentation as the first thing introduced to the player is some of the insane things a truck can do like back flipping off steel containers, spinning off two tires to reset the truck on all fours, and soaring like an eagle. Rainbow Studios have done an impressive job in crafting each truck from an aesthetic perspective especially when the truck body starts coming apart during a particularly wild encounter; and “wild” is what the player will experience most of the time due to the game’s physics. Easily the biggest flaw regarding this game is its physics. Each truck is incredibly light in terms of control and bouncing as the player will undoubtedly witness unbelievable flips and unwarranted rollovers that can ruin a race. While playing more will allow the player to understandably adjust to the physics, there will be many a time when the game decides to do the seemingly impossible with a truck coming off a minimal jump by sending it spiraling forward. Each truck can be upgraded via points gained by completing activities & stunts, but other than speed & acceleration a majority of the upgrades doesn’t change much. For example, upgrading Monster Mutt saw the truck become more unstable in terms of bouncing & tire traction than it was at its base level. These upgrades would appear to be needed to keep up with the ever-increasing AI difficulty in “Career Mode”, but the game is inconsistent in terms of difficulty especially in the latter stages of the mode.
The points used to upgrade each truck are also needed to unlock a majority of the trucks locked at the start. Some of the less popular or newer trucks on the scene are unlocked by completing certain stages of “Career Mode” by placing high in the rankings of each event. But if the player wants Maximum Destruction or Blue Thunder expect to spend a lot of time grinding for points as they are drip fed to the player and truck prices are exorbitant. While getting 1200 points for a first place freestyle may sound like a lot, a truck of Grave Digger’s status will cost 40,000 points. The decision to lock so many trucks behind the wall of grinding is shocking. There are also quite a few presentation issues including destructible elements like crushed cars having pre-rendered designs and items like thin flag poles or trees being able to stop a truck in its tracks. Easily the worst offender in regards to poor presentation decisions is also attached to “Career Mode”. For some reason there’s a lack of race restart that will see the player having to go back to the main hub to restart a “Career Mode” moment gone wrong – a feature that is in virtually every modern day racer. Having to go back to the hub wouldn’t be so bad if not for the extensive loading time as the game has to load the pretty massive open world every time. One of the biggest knocks against the game is definitely the lack of online multiplayer – another given feature in racing games omitted here. Local multiplayer does exist with a split-screen option thankfully.
With so many issues and bad decisions associated with this game it should be a perfect game to avoid, but there is definitely a level of fun to be had if a player isn’t worried about unlocking everything, finishing “Career Mode” with the best ranking, or cares about more realistic physics.
Should You Play “Monster Jam: Steel Titans”?
There’s no way anyone would consider “Monster Jam: Steel Titans” a fulfilling experience mostly due to the finicky physics, lacking online & multiplayer options, and the grind necessary to unlock a majority of the more popular trucks like Grave Digger. For die-hard monster truck fans this will prove fun for a short time thanks to things like handing the controller to a friend to see who can perform the best freestyle. The initial asking price of forty dollars is nice, but still is too much for what a player is given unless your greatest joy in life is absurd physics featuring a gigantic machine trying to drill itself into the earth.
