Racing games to some are the most enjoyable and heart racing game genre. To others, they are lack luster all around, and should cease to exist. So far, 2012 isn’t off to a particularly excellent year in terms of racing games, which doesn’t help win over racing fans or non-racing fans. Mad Riders tries to target both racing fans, as well as people who aren’t particularly fond of racing games and simply want to enjoy themselves. Does Mad Riders succeed in its goal or does it fall to the level 2012’s already released racing games?
Let’s check out what’s HOT and what’s NOT in our review of Mad Riders.
HOT
Incredibly Fun
From the start of playing Mad Riders, I could tell that it was going to be a great game in terms of enjoyment. It is very easy to get carried away while playing this game as I quickly found out, starting one minute, and then seeing hours pass in no time. With all of the options that this game gives you, it should definitely prove to be a worthwhile investment. Out of the five modes that are in the game (race, stunt race, race the clock, arena, and ghost challenge), my personal favorite being arena. In arena, you race around a relatively small patch of land at high speeds collecting checkpoints before your opponents can do the same, and then speeding to the finish line.
Large Variety
All in all, there appear to be forty-five tracks total (excluding release day downloadable content) in Mad Riders. Though many of these tracks aren’t 100% different, and usually tend to be a variation of a previous track where the particular area has been modified, they are excellent maps. They vary in location and feature high flying jumps and excellent scenery as well as cool landmarks. To add on to the large amount of tracks available to play in Mad Riders, there are also many options to choose from when customizing both your vehicle and your rider. As you progress, you will unlock more and more items from more vehicles, to customization options like new characters/outfits, and new ways to skin out your vehicles.
Sure, there are the default easy going two or three characters that are available to play as that you would expect, like in a game like say Motorstorm. This game expands on that by adding multiple alternate characters on top of the previously mentioned characters. There are some pretty cool characters that you can use, and while they don’t necessarily add to your stats in any way, besides a possible personal self esteem boost, they do look very nice to the eye. While more minor, you can also customize your vehicles with pre-made skins, or go into detail with your own preferred color scheme.
Multiplayer
Even after you have won all of the tournament races in the game, and have furthermore won all of the Offroad Elite races, there is still more to do in Mad Riders. As you may or may not have noticed while playing in the single player portion of the game, there is multiplayer packed into this package. While it does not feature the full line-up of game modes as single player, it still includes races, stunt races, and my personal favorite, arena. Just like what you would expect, you race against friends, enemies, frenemies maybe even, or just any player anywhere, really.
What I personally thought was really well done was an implementation in single player that I previously mentioned. The game tells you while you are playing in the single players portion of the game if a multiplayer game is available. This is great if you didn’t happen to find any games when you searched ten minutes ago, and somebody else wants to play and happened to get on between then and now, as you will be notified of such. Even better is that the game does not make you quit out of the race you’re currently initiated in until it is confirmed that the race is available, just incase for some reason you aren’t able to connect.
