MXHD

MXHD – Demo Impressions

MXHD is a motocross racing game developed by JSTARLAB for Xbox Live Indie Games Marketplace . It recently released on February 3, 2012. Growing up i played motocross games in the arcades. The most impactful had to have been Excitebike. Excitebike believe it or not gave Super Mario Bros a run for its money with me back in “86″. As for MXHD, its a game thats rough around the edges but does some very important things right in my opinion.

The title screen on MXHD featured good music with a stylish picture of a motocross rider getting mad air. The main menus included: Play, Options, Purchase and Exit. Before you actually play you can pick between two different songs to listen to “Motorcrosser” and “Dirty Lifestyle”. Both tracks do fit the game’s style and atmosphere pretty good. Once you click Play you can then change Riders as well your bike’s colors. Next, I checked out the maps which includes two playable and three locked. Keep in mind I played the trial game of MXHD not the full game. Oasis was a figure 8 type track with a ramp and takes place in the middle of the desert surrounded by palm trees.

The other playable map was called Kheops which featured big structures in the background which looked like pyramids. Kheops was the more difficult of the two tracks. The non playable tracks were called Country Side, Rodeo and Saguaro. The tracks had ramps where you can do tricks in mid-air. As far as the controls go they were simple and worked pretty good. The Xbox 360 gamepad: LT-brake, RT-accelerate, X, B, A, Y- perform air tricks, Back-return to track. Controlling your bike was pretty easy. You can power-slide and turn simple enough. Performing air stunts was pretty fun i do admit. Sometimes the camera did get too far away from the action when you crash and have to re-center your bike.

MXHD does have some issues most notably i experienced a weird physics glitch and got stuck on the ramp (Oasis). I was going full speed and just stopped on the ramp at the edge. It was weird and happened once so its not a game changer. However what is a game changer is the ragdoll physics system used in MXHD. Now i admit it was fun and I laughed alote watching the crashes as i raced against 3 other CPU controlled racers. But what is up with you barely hitting a small rock slowly that sends you falling all over the place? There were quite a few times i would barely touch an object on the track and just crash. The latter was frustrating considering your in a race trying to win after 4 laps only to lose cause you hit something on the track lightly.

Despite my grips with the physics in MXHD i still consider it a good little motocross indie game. The reason being is that its plain fun. I also liked the presentation. The visuals are pretty good featuring good texture work and dirt effects as your bike skids around the dust track. MXHD ran so milky smooth and kept a solid framerate the entire time. The music was good for the game in my opinion. For the most part MXHD is a good game but does have some rough edges. If your even a little into motocross games and have a Xbox 360 i say give MXHD a try. To buy it you will have to fork over 240 MSP. Thanks for reading.