Publisher: Infogrames, www.infogrames.com
Age Appropriateness: seven and up
Parental Advisory: Motorcycle crashes
Violence
Rating: 
Offering a virtual Motocross experience, Infograme's MXRider offers virtual
FIM World Championships events that feature FIM Motocross 2000 season tracks
and riders. It's a game that looks great and presents an entertaining Motocross
simulation on the PlayStation 2.
Since MXRider is an official product of the FIM Motocross World Championship, it features 23 licensed FIM Motocross tracks in 14 countries and 58 licensed FIM Motocross riders. The game also comes with six Supercross tracks and freestyle courses.
In the game, you may compete in a single race, or experience the life of a pro rider in a championship mode where you create a rider, choose a bike, and manage money. There's a challenge mode that offers three sets of twelve challenges-each more difficult than the last. Finally, in the multi-player mode, you can race head-to-head against friends.
The simulation is quite convincing, although bikes get a lot more air time than they do in real life. But this makes the game more fun. In competitions, you can perform some 30+ stunts and the game awards you for executing a variety of them. In execution, I found the trick system rather unintuitive to learn.
The game's graphics are excellent. I was impressed with the detailed environments and enjoyed watching the bikes splash through the water and mud, and seeing bikes and riders accumulate mud. Also, the sound effects are convincing.
In the end, those of you who are into motocross games will find MXRider to be an excellent and well rounded game. And even if you aren't into motocross games, you can have a blast with this one.
