Developed by Teyon and published by Nacon, Monster Truck Champsionship is a monster truck simulation game. Monster trucks is a franchise loved by many but a genre mastered by very few developers. It has been a long time since we played a monster truck game that was both fun and decent to play. The latest developer to tackle this franchise is Teyon that has gone the extra mile and created the very first monster truck simulation game. This is our review of the PC version of Monster Truck Championship in which we drive some behemoths and crush everything that comes in our way.
Career is your main playing area of Monster Hunter Championship where you will spend most of your time. Here, you can create and manage your very own racing team, build and customize your monster truck, manage your sponsorships, and participate in different events that progress your career. The events are divided into three different leagues National, Professional, and Major. You have to complete each of the league and earn points to move on to the next. Complete all leagues or earn enough points and you are taken to the finals which are the final test of your skill and mettle. Each event in these leagues comprises of various stages that range from races to stunt events to drag races. Each event is unique and gets tougher as you progress in the leagues.
These are also your primary source of earning cash in the game. You can hire different crew members in your team such as managers, engineers, and engine specialists. The more people you hire in your team, the more paychecks you have to dish out however each of them comes with their benefits and bonuses as well which makes them extremely valuable to your team. Their bonuses range from bonus income to increased torque or braking power from your brakes depending on their proficiency and experiences. Sponsors on the other hand give you various challenges and completing them will reward you with cash and bonus parts unlocked in your garage that you can equip without paying a single dime.
If you want to skip Career mode and want to have some random fun, you can jump into some random events of your liking. You can jump in quick races, stunts, destruction, freestyle, and drag races with settings of your choice. You can bring your own custom truck from the Career mode here as well or you can use the basic truck or the monster trucks created by the developers. This mode offers all of the modes that are available in the Career mode without any strings attached to them. Play them as much as you want however, you will not earn any points or money in these quick events. If you want to actually progress in the game and unlock new parts, you will have to play the Career mode.
Coming to the gameplay of Monster Truck Championship, I can easily say that this game surpasses every monster truck game ever created to this day. The trucks feel extremely meaty and pushing them hard will really show their weight as you try to stop them at corners or jump across ramps and gaps. The controls are on spot and performing stunts in the game is a breeze thanks to the trucks’ meaty character. Landing from jumps is extremely satisfying and if you have a good sound system, you will love the loud thuds from jumps and hits. Hitting barriers and other trucks will make your parts fly on the track and the sounds of the engine are nothing short of amazing.
Another thing that really impressed was how reactive the AI of the game is. You can try to ram into them and they will try their best to avoid them and if you spin out in the middle of the road, they will stop instead of just barging into you like a mindless zombie. I spend most of my time playing racing games and very few racing games actually have a decent AI that makes you feel that they are pretty smart. During my early hours into the game, I was still getting used to the controls of the game and this meant that there were quite a lot of spin-outs and crashes. I crashed into opponents and I crashed into walls a lot but the AI of the impressed me a lot with their saves and braking as they waited for the track to clear before they could progress further in races. While the AI is pretty easy to beat in lower difficulties, ramp it up a little and you really watch them turn competitive but their smartness is not hindered in any way.
Your garage is the place where you will be doing all the magic on your monster truck. Since the game ditches the officially licensed monster trucks, it means that you can literally build the monster truck of your dream. There are plenty of options here for you to play around with. You can not only customize your monster truck visually but also purchase some performance upgrades for your truck and make it more powerful. Starting with the performance upgrades, you can purchase better engines, brakes, suspensions, tires and rims for your truck which will improve the stats of your truck across four major stats which include acceleration, handling, brakes, and top speed. Better parts have to be unlocked with first by reaching a certain number of points in different leagues and then you can either purchase them with cash or unlock them for free by completing various sponsor challenges.
Apart from the performance upgrades, you also have a large number of visual customization options that can change the complete look of your truck. You start off with a very basic monster truck and as you play the main career and unlock more truck parts, you can switch to different bodies, change the paint, apply some cool stickers, get some cool attachments at the front, back or the top and even change the entire shell of your monster truck. However, these body and shell changes are only visuals and unless you change any performance parts on your truck, they handle the same, and nothing changes when it comes to performance with these visual overhauls. This allows you to create a monster truck that is your very own and suited to your taste. You will also find some pre-built monster trucks for use in the arcade races of the game which serve as good examples for your builds.
Monster Truck Championship also has multiplayer however I was unable to find any lobbies to join while I was playing it for my review. Jumping into ‘Create a Session’ gave me the option to either create a Quick Race or a Drag Race. There were no stunts or any other event available in the Multiplayer. But then again, neither were any players to test out the online servers of the game so I cannot really comment about the online bit of the game. Because of this, nearly all of my time for this review was spent in the singleplayer custom races or the main Career mode of the game. The online community might build eventually in the future but there’s plenty of singleplayer goodness in the game to keep you busy nonetheless.
Coming to the technical aspect of Monster Truck Championship, it is a flawless game. I did not encounter even a small glitch or bug in the game which shows the high-level of optimization done by the developer. The game sounds are spot on and the visuals are pretty decent for a monster truck game. The load times are extremely good but then again I had the game running on an M.2 NVMe with a Ryzen 3700X. For an indie developer, Teyon has managed to optimize a game so well that even many AAA developers are unable to achieve today. However, I would like to point out here that the tutorials could be a little better in the game as some of the advanced tricks are not explained that well in the game and are hard to understand.
I have spent over 20 hours in Monster Truck Championship ever since I received the game for this review and I can easily say that I’ve enjoyed every last bit of the game. The Career mode is great to unlock things and having sponsor challenges in the game means that you do not really have to grind in the game to earn money to unlock new parts for your truck. But then again, earning money is not that hard in the game either. For me, this is the first proper monster truck simulator that I’ve actually enjoyed playing. Last year’s Monster Jam Steel Titans was a decent title as well but it was an arcade title and lacked the proper sim handling and the truck building that this game offers. I just hope the camera in the game gets a little tinkering to make it better, especially the left and right side camera which is too close to the truck.
Final Verdict:
Monster Truck Championship is the best monster truck simulation I have ever played. Or if you look at the past monster truck games, all of them were simply arcade games so that makes Monster Truck Championship the best monster truck simulation game of all times. The gameplay is solid and the trucks really feel meaty. With the title, I really felt like I was actually playing a monster truck game where I can build my very own monster truck racing team from scratch and work my way to the top of the circle and not just simply complete a couple of championships and become number one. It offers depth and highly satisfying gameplay. It is a solid step in the right direction and this franchise has a huge potential moving forward. Developer Teyon has laid down a very good for a franchise that could get extremely big in the future if pursued properly. If you love monster trucks and have been looking for a proper monster truck simulator, I am happy to tell you that your game has finally arrived.
Final Score: 8.8/10
