Monster Jam Steel Titans 2 Video Game Review
Monster trucks are the automotive embodiment of a somewhat tipsy father coming home after a weddingspirits high but knocking all the garden gnomes. They are large, loud, and a tiny destructive -- but adorable oafs, however. It is difficult to hate a giant, five-ton truck sporting a novelty coat.
Monster Jam Steel Titans 2 quaintly leans into this type of wackiness using a run of large, themed open worlds celebrating a ridiculous yet earnest secure of trucks shaped like dogs and zombies, but its anticlimactic exploration targets as well as the vanilla, chore-like structure of these competitions on offer unfortunately result in a surprisingly boring drive.
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The shortage of spark is quickly evident. After a bafflingly basic tutorial, I had been abruptly and unceremoniously dumped to the first of many open-world environments, leaving me to press pause and then shuffle through menus to discover exactly what I was actually supposed to perform.
Steel Titans 2 divides its activity over two different career paths, but neither of them are very intriguing. There's the arena and stadium-based championship career, which resembles conventional, real world Monster Jam events, and then there is the World Career style, which is literally just a string of exactly the identical arena and stadium events but with a waypoint battle or circuit race based from the open worlds comprised occasionally.
There is also a smattering of things to go and find in these maps, however doing so has proven bothersome and unrewarding. You can not"find" a secret in the wrong vehicle, however in the perfect truck nothing I have discovered so far has been especially interesting. Just Dragon Mutt Poodle could open a specific sexy pink barn to temporarily make a new leap open, for example, however, the leap only seems to exist as a way to collect a floating left wing corner. According to the game, floating triangles unlock more trucks but finally it is just substance on a list to tick off into a game that's already a persistent slog.
Truck handling is passable but it certainly lacks the sense of weight and inertia located in Dragon Truck Championship. The overall driving is fine and the individual rear-wheel steering controlled with the perfect stick certainly differentiates it from most other racers. The brief path, head-to-head racing feels finest, where you could whip the trucks into pretty satisfying and competitive powerslides. However, things unravel somewhat when you tip , or suggestions are needed.
Scoring a perfect 10 is really a cakewalk when all you have to do is pin down the throttle, point in a ramp, rip a couple of backflips, and then roll around. It won't look pretty but also the points will rack up. I never had a plan; I ever had to do was ship it large, fall around, and accidentally accumulate a combo large enough to become unbeatable.
The stadium championship is the worst offender and really lacks excitement. There is zero awareness of becoming an up-and-coming driver; I simply mashed via a menu and proceeded through a laundry list of events. There is no staff direction, no truck creation or customisation, and no real sense of just how far through the year you're, other than the usual progress bar you have to give up the way to view. The barebones presentation just shoves you from event to event until there are not any more of these, and then it is over, with zero indication you have really won anything.
Rainbow Studios has been responsible for some elite, mudslinging racers through the years, but Monster Jam Steel Titans 2 isn't one of these. The rushing is serviceable enough and the themed worlds are a cute concept, but its dull and badly presented, chore-like strategy to its livelihood content turns among the very grin-inducing spectacles into motorsport into a remarkably boring encounter.
