When people discuss sports, usually a few come to mind up front. Football, basketball, baseball, hockey … and most recently Nascar. I happen to a be a big Nascar fan myself, so I’m happy that it’s finally picking up a lot of viewers and being recognized a lot more by the sports community. For years, racing sports had been considered a “redneck” pastime only, and one of the biggest ones out of all of them was monster truck rallies. While overall, it still kind of seems to fit into that mold in some people’s minds … it is getting a lot more visibility and is even getting some recognition in the video game world. The most recent offering for the GameCube being UbiSoft’s Monster 4x4: Masters of Metal.

Masters of Metal (MoM) actually takes a page out of games like Pro Race Driver in setting the player up with kind of a story based mode to play through. You get to play as Rookie, a new guy on the circuit looking to make it big in the world of monster trucks. In between the races (which I’ll explain here in a second), the story is moved along through cutscenes as rookie meets up with various promoters and rivals on his way to being a champion, most of which are looking to give him his “big break” or offer up cash for competing which is of course important to keep the car crushing machines up and running.

MoM’s story mode has a couple of different race styles to it in a variety of cities. As you tour around the United States, each city hosts three different events … the arena, which is a one on one showdown between you and another competitor in a series of qualifying heats on indoor jump filled tracks, an offroad race which takes the destruction out to the streets and in areas like parks and other recreational sites, and a stunt event which will have you doing things like jumping over obstacles or doing doughnut competitions. There is also of course multiplayer head to head racing as well, so you and a competitor can duke it out in the diesel breathing giants.

One unique twist that the developers decided to add in to the game is the use of arcade style powerups while racing off-road. With the money that you make, you can use it to buy a couple of normal upgrades like nitro boosts or better suspension, but you can also get indestructible armor powerups and retractable spikes for the tires as well to help with grip which on ice or other slippery surfaces. Since the off-road races will take you all over the place (there are no set roads, just follow an arrow at the top of the screen to the next checkpoint), these can come in pretty handy depending on what you happen to run up against.

Up front, I really started off enjoying MoM. I really liked the roaring engine noises and the cool replay cameras, and the track layouts were done well enough to keep me entertained. As I kept playing though, I began to notice a couple of things that began to bring it down for me. For starters, the physics to the trucks are amazingly unreal overall. While the trucks bounce and jolt on their suspensions while moving over bumps in the road or whatever, hitting jumps at top speed sends them flying through the air and sometimes it even seems like you just went halfway across the stage that you were racing on. These physics also start coming into play when going up against the AI, since hitting (or getting hit by) one from the side usually will send you careening off to the side or into an obstacle causing valuable seconds to be lost. In the arena, you also get a two second time penalty for going outside the track lines, so this can happen more than you would like it to.

Another issue that I encountered that really would have helped the game out a lot would have been the addition of a little more or less realism. What I mean by this is that the story mode plays out like it wants the game to be a sim title, and makes references to having to win money to keep your truck in good repair and standings. There is no repair to worry about though, since lost truck parts will pop back up again like they were never missing, and even snapping a tire off during a race is no problem since within 5 – 10 seconds a new one will spawn right back up. In addition, the trucks (there are actual ones up front and to unlock like Grave Digger, Bulldozer, and Destroyer) have no stat differences that I was aware of, even though it lists out the engine type and some other info that is pretty much meaningless since all of them seem to perform in the same way. My thoughts are that if you want me to play a sim title, let me upgrade my truck. Let me tinker with parts, give me reasons to upgrade equipment, and leave the stuff out like shielding and retractable spikes. If you want me to play an arcade style racer, leave out the story and just let me race to unlock stuff.

Finally, the camera in MoM has problems keeping up with the action going on out on the track. The camera is set to stay behind the trucks as you barrel around the arena or the off-road racing, but quick turns can quickly throw it to the side of your truck (which obviously doesn’t help much in seeing what’s ahead of you). The replay camera doesn’t work out much better either, since the cameras many times are in places where they don’t need to be. For example, I wanted to watch a replay where I jumped for what seemed like a half mile just to watch it over again. I see the truck approaching the ramp, then the nitro goes off, then the screen goes to four brown rectangles. After a couple of seconds of head scratching, I finally realized that the camera had gone under the ramp to film my jump. In addition, there were a couple of spots where all you saw was a black screen due to a sign being in the way or the blotted, chaotic color patterns which represented fans as the camera decided to film the action from underneath the bleachers.

Graphically, MoM does pretty good up front, then falls down again as well. The trucks themselves were good representations of their real life counterparts and the truck suspension tilting and whatnot looked really good. The environments were decent, and fully destructible (except for the trees or solid walls), so running into fountains or fences will be sure to please kids as they demolish everything in sight from checkpoint to checkpoint. Sadly, the cutscenes are horrible and look silly enough to be skipped or laughed at, and they play into the stereotypical “redneck” image of the sport. Rookie is a narrow headed, dopey looking guy (and not one that you would want to play as) that you would expect to see as a caricature on a Jeff Foxworthy CD, and you almost expect to see even the wealthy promoters shoveling down Moon Pies as they introduce their “wife / sister” to you. Racers that you can select from for single races aren’t much better either, so you can select from a Mad Max looking guy to an overweight mom or even a leather clad driver who obviously isn’t there for the women. On top of it, they walk in this weird still legged stomp fashion that just doesn’t look very good.

Overall, MoM actually will get your attention up front and will probably turn out to be enjoyable the first couple of times that you play it, but the camera issues, goofy physics, horrible looking and acted cutscenes, and just overall boring gameplay after about the third or fourth time you play it due to repetition probably won’t warrant a purchase. Monster Truck fans will probably get the most enjoyment out of it, but it may even be a little less than what they expect as well. If you feel the urge to play MoM, I strongly suggest a rental. 

Gameplay: 6.0

When you first fire up the game, it is fun to drive laps around the arena or barrel around the countryside running for checkpoints. The camera issues, repetitive gameplay, dull story mode, and lack of any kind of upgrade options (except nitros, suspension, shields, and tire spikes for off-road) quickly start pushing it downhill fast.
 

Graphics: 5.8
The trucks were done pretty well overall, but the physics were absolutely laughable throughout the game. The cutscenes that were supposed to drive the story along were definitely not up to today’s standards, and the redneck characters that were added just looked goofy and ridiculous.

Sound: 5.7
On a bright note, the tricks and the roaring engines sounded pretty great. The background music is made up of generic rock guitars blaring, and the voiceovers of the characters were repetitive and just plain silly.

Difficulty: Medium
If an opponent gets around you, it’s hard to catch up … but if you get by an opponent, they probably won’t catch up to you. The tracks aren’t that tough, and the most difficult and challenging thing about the game is keeping your truck under control.

Concept: 5.9
There was a ton of opportunity for MoM, and I was really looking forward to unlocking and tweaking the engine of such well known trucks as Grave Digger. The game is too confused about what it wants to be though, and ultimately the arcade play with sim style feel, bad graphics, and lack of options just work against each other.

Multiplayer: 6.2
Two players can run head to head, but it probably won’t last for more than a couple of rounds.

Overall: 6.0
While it will grab your attention up front, it quickly gets repetitive to play due to nothing to do but race. In addition, the goofy story mode, generic rock sounds, and silly graphics won’t do much to keep you hanging in and watching either. If you just HAVE to play it, rent it first … nuff said.