MX vs ATV Alive First Impressions

[JMD]

Ok, to start off I'll tell you all I used to ride Dirt bikes in the 70's. My close friends raced every weekend on differnt tracks thoughout New England in the Amature/ Semi pro circuit and they had their own MX track built on their land an we would race on that daily, so I know my way around a dirt bike.

I'm a huge Motocross/Supercross fan, and although last years Mx Reflex game had it's issues it was at least a solid Mx racing game. Alive on the other hand is a very stripped down bare bones game, that I feel doesn't even match up to what Reflex offered.

At the start you get two National tracks and two short tracks, and two free ride area's to race on , and a stock 125cc bike. There is no career mode at all, it's just pick a track, set the laps, and race. No heat races, No Moto's , nothing. Also you must race these tracks over and over until you reach level 10 which will unlock more tracks (or you can spend some money in the store and purchase the unlocks for everything, but at this point they are not getting any more of my money). I've run about 7 races so far and I'm still level 2.

I really have to wonder what the dev's were thinking on this one. In my opinion Alive is a huge step backward from Reflex. If you were thinking about picking this up, at this point I'd say save your money. Once I level up and unlock better tracks, Bikes, Bike parts and so on, I'll come back and add to my impressions of the game. I'll also check out the online racing and comment on that. For now Alive is a huge disappointment for me.

[goh]

The last one was terrible.
This one is...it should be put in the landfill with ET for the Atari.
They used to top themselves with a better game every year,now they've managed a worse game every year since Unleashed. (or whatever came after Superfly) This being the pinacle of their disgrace. It's very unfortuante this is the only option.

Where to even begin with the failures of this?
I'll just go straight through I suppose.

1 page instruction book. O-N-E. It shows the basic controls and explains a bit of reflex.

Before turning on the game I put in my code for the club access and supposeded compound. It's just a rental but they're cool with it if I take something out of the box. Of course it's already on the disc. I just shake my head and say I'm not suprised.

So I put in the game,get to the menu and wager the rest of the "DLC" is already on the disc too and take a trip to the store. There's hardly anything there and the size of the files are hidden. I went to "events" only to see the compound I was supposed to have been given with the code. I wasn't and they want 640 points/$8 for it. They were also selling cheats. Normally I wouldn't be sure to blame the dev or publisher but THQ is listed as both.

Back out and it's off to rider customization. I shrug off there being no gender select despite the 3rd option being pink. There's very little unlocked but I manage to make something ok looking anyway. Then I scroll through the rest of the riders. To my shock they're ALL the exact same model. Apparently they didnt' get the memo Ashley Fiolek is a female. Yes that's right. They gave a female the same body as all the male riders. Now it's clear why there's no gender select. I also notice I'm forced to have writing on the butt. There's only 2 options by default.

Time to customize the bike. Again barely anything,nearly all requiring unlocks. My rider was wearing red and black. I made the bike black. The numbers on the bike were stuck as green because the other colors need to be unlocked. It looked terrible.

Off to freeride! I keep trying tricks but not doing any. I was pressing the wrong button. Holding RB and flicking the stick is how,it's just really unresponsive. I thought maybe they switched to buttons so holding RB and pressing X didn't work,it reset me. Which leads to another issue there's no trick list. ANYWHERE. So I'm venturing around this island now and get over to a water part with some sand stuff. I hydroplane right over the water until I get to a part that's too deep. I'm reset on that part and try to go off to the side. Also too deep. Try to go back the way I came and umm too deep. There's not enough room to go fast enough to get back so I had to use the warp. That seems to be a sign of piss poor testing. That or the warp was a response to such things.

After warping back to normal land I go to climb some mountians. I've already been to the hill on the other side. This should be fun to drive down right?! Except no. I can't drive down it. I get to the top,get on the rock and am reset instead of driving over to the other side. I have to go back down the hill and drive around it to get to the other side. I'm sorry but this is 2011 and the 7th(?) gen of videogames. We've been able to get to it if we can see it since 2007.

Then I try the next freeride area. Being reset is even worse. I also seemed to have been having handling/control problems. Admitedly I've had a bit of a hassle with the right stick on the controller,I thought I fixed it. I switch controllers and to a race I go...

Only to still have control related problems with the bike jerking to the left or right inexplicably or doing a wheelie when it shouldn't. There was also a turn that was much too dark. I thought I was supposed to go straight over the jump. Couldn't even see there was anything on the side. I did this on lap 2 as well. I had it on the easiest difficulty so won anyway. It occured to me during the race this game has about 5 songs. Due to the one page instruction book which would normally have a list I have no idea how many there actually are. Not that you can hear them by default. If you still want to try this junk turn the music up to 100 and the other stuff down to 70 before you start. Intrestingly enough there is a female model in the game holding the signs before a race and trophy afterwards. There were a bunch of stats afterwards there was no explanation for. Bar bangs? The intro has people punching each other. How do I do that? How do I even win these bar bangs? As there's no in-game tutorial to go with the instruction page I have no idea. What of new customers? What if someone doesn't know what the clutch is for?

As that went well enough I go off to career mode. Only I can't find it. Then realize there isn't one. It's simply rider level progression.

I try an ATV. While the bike controls were stiff and unreliable,well they're fantastic compared to the ATV. The word unplayable came to mind and after having tipped over for the 3rd time while a song was playing for the 4th time in about 30 minutes I turned it off.

This game is absolutely terrible,poorly designed,awful controls especially with ATVs,what appears to be complete lazyness in some areas and extremely poor presentation. It deserves no more than a 3 when it comes to reviews. Currently stands at a 0 for me. Graphics aren't bad but you don't get overall credit there.

For the love of Deegs,Twitch and the Metal Mulisha somebody save us!
Bring back MTX Mototrax Activision!
Someone get Pacific Coast Power & Light to make another game!
I'll even take a Freestyle Metal X 2.
As much as I hate to say it...yes...even Freekstyle 2 at this point.

[RumbleCard]

I guess no arena freestyle for points? Indoor supercross tracks? I've been playing for an hour or so and don't see anything like that.

Although unrealistic I thought it was kind of fun to score points off multiple tricks and stuff. Its pretty tough to pull off tricks just in general. I don't know if they intentionally attempted to tone it down or if it's simply a lack of responsive controls.

Anyone else notice that on high air your bike magically moves...it's hard to tell if it's the camera sliding over or if you're inexplicably just dropping down or sliding over.

Not loving the black and white when you go off track.

Even with all the tracks unlocked the game seems smaller than Reflex.

No career mode is flat out an abortion of common sense.

I don't know squat about dirt bikes but have generally enjoyed their games. What's the point of the clutch?

Overall the game is fair to slightly boring. My 5 year old loves it though.

[goh]

Nope. Your freestyle is free ride mode and activating jam session. No SX at all.

The clutch is for a speed boost when starting and coming out of turns.

[JMD]

The SX will be coming as download content, they announced that a month or so ago.

[RumbleCard]

Quote: Originally Posted by JMD

The SX will be coming as download content, they announced that a month or so ago.

This is at least mildly reassuring.

Although with no career mode I just don't see high replay value here.

[goh]

So I gave it another shot in the freeride. There's only one good trick doing jump between the two of them. Shorttrack was even worse than normal.

[JMD]

Ok, I played all day yesterday. I got up to level 25 and unlocked the rest of the tracks, some very nice ones by the way. I also was finally able to download the free James Stewart compound which also has two nice tracks. With more tracks and bigger better bikes the game does improve but again it's a head scratcher why they decided not to have any kind of career mode. So where this game is at it's best is online racing, if you can find some good riders to race with.

Over all I still like the handling and feel of MX Reflex better, but the more I play Alive the more I get used to it. I'll wait and see what the SX download brings and if they plan on having any kind of career mode as DLC.

I'd say if your not a die hard MX fan like me this game will be of no interest to you.