Get into your huge Monster Truck, rev the engine, hit the ramp, fly through the air over several cars, and stick the landing to make the crowd go wild. Check out our Monster Jam Steel Titans review!
Real Trucks. Real Action. Monster Jam! Monster Jam Steel Titans delivers the complete Monster Jam experience for everybody to enjoy!
All the trucks, stunts, stadiums, racing and massive air in one game! Play in various game modes including Stadium and outdoor Racing, various Stunt Challenges and Destruction modes!
– Drive a MONSTER! Compete with 25 of the most popular trucks, including Grave Digger and Max-D!
– Total destruction including breaking body panels, deforming junker cars as well as demolishing the environment!
– Perform your favorite stunts! Bicycles, Stoppies, Moonwalks, Walk Its, Cyclones, Pogos, Power Outs and Backflips!
– Hear the roar of huge crowds inside 12 stadiums packed with fans on your road to the Monster Jam World Finals!
– Explore and smash through the environment in a Massive Outdoor World!
– Train just like your favorite Monster Jam pro driver at Monster Jam University!
Monster Jam: Steel Titans – Announce Trailer
Monster Jam Steel Titans is brought to you by THQ Nordic who is currently resuscitating many a dormant franchise, and Monster Jam Steel Titans is one of those types of releases. How did it fare with it’s run on the track? The game has been developed by Rainbow Studios, whose lineage goes back with the THQ of old to develop the MX vs. ATC series, so the studio does have a history of not only racing games.
The game throws you into a tutorial to learn the game before you start: Monster Jam University. This section teaches you the ropes to get you started, showing you how to accelerate, brake, go in reverse, and more. Each of the lessons puts you in a closed environment, taking time to put you in a new environment between each skill learned. The thing is most of these are skills that racers have ingrained in their brains, so making it mandatory might not be the best of ideas. Once you complete the tutorials, the game will drop you into an open hub.
Once you get going, you will spend most of your time in the Career mode, which will have you take on different races, whether on one on one races or by going up against a group of trucks, smashing and crushing the course. There are various stunt events as well- this IS a Monster Jam game, so of course there are stunts! You will need to rack up points by completing different stunts, whether it’s doing donuts, backflips, bicycles, wheelies, etc. Racing never felt like a challenge in this game.
As you play you will need to earn some of the in-game currency so that you can spend it on upgrading your vehicles with new parts or unlocking sweet skins that boost your ride – there are several skins to unlock. The weird thing is that vehicle upgrades don’t apply to every skin by default. Every time you complete an upgrade on your vehicle, it will only be applied to your currently selected skin, meaning you will have to redo things when you switch to another skin. It seems like a weird choice, and it’s hopefully something the team might look into changing by way of a patch.
As with most racing games, one of the most important things to nail is the physics of your vehicle and how it reacts to the track. For this experience, it’s a bit hit and miss. The game does a good job of keeping your truck connected to the track, and taking a corner feels just right, which is sort of a big deal in a racing game. But when you’re about to jump, the monster truck is going to feel somewhat bouncy in design, with some bumps sending your truck flying higher than you would expect. The team seems to be aware of this as there is a handy reset button that will help to get you back on track, but your mileage may vary.
Graphically, Monster Jam Steel Titans looks good. Trucks look as solid and heavy as you’d expect their real-life counterparts to be, and the tires have a nice rubbery feel to them. As for the environments, they won’t feel as solid as the rest of the game. You can tell they’re more low-poly than the trucks, but after spending some time with the game for this review, they don’t feel like a deal-breaker. The music is, as you’d expect, focusing on a rock theme that fits right into the action. It’s not a bad selection, but I don’t think it’s something you’ll somehow find yourself humming around on any given Tuesday.
Final Thoughts
Monster Jam Steel Titans is an interesting game. I think the racing feels good when your wheels are touching the tracks, but when they leave the track, the physics are not as tight as they could be. Because of this, it’s not a bad game but also not one that is going to grab you right from the start. I did play the game with my eight-year-old son, and he loved the overall experience. The trucks, the stunts, the racing, it all made sense to him, so do keep this in mind if you have young kids who are fans of monster truck racing.
Disclaimer
This Monster Jam Steel Titans review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by THQ Nordic.
