Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Game 5 is Milestone’s latest installment in the franchise, coming in with more improvements, more features, and just a more stable game overall. Let loose, go fast, land big jumps, shred the dirt, or eat dirt trying. We all start somewhere.

With the new features and improvements comes a bigger career mode, a more in-depth tutorial to help you become the best rider you can, more options in track creator that allow you to make and download rhythm sections, and it even allows you to grab custom tracks from players on other platforms. Last but not least for those creative people out there, enjoy the new cosmetic editor – make custom stickers and spruce up those helmets.

Racing is what this game is all about. Keeping a good flow is essential, and for the most part, it is simple enough with difficulty options to match your abilities. On the other hand, you can be griefed by the terrible AI. It seems to feel like they don’t acknowledge your existence and just plow through you, launching you off-ramps and ruining your rhythm and flow.

Online racing with the new drop-in drop-out feature is loads of fun, making it easier for people to just jump into races and shred the tracks competing for that podium. Let’s just hope people are more respectable than the AI and won’t resort to pushing you around to secure their victory.

If you’re not used to supercross games, controlling the bike might seem like a bit of a chore. Luckily there are some great tutorials in the game to help you get a hang of controlling the bike using the dual-stick controls, and keeping your flow through jumps, helping you to become the champion you are.

Using the more creative part of the game is also something that might not come naturally. Track Editor is something that might take a little time for newcomers to get their head around but can be loads of fun once you get the hang of it. For you artists, dive into the sticker creator. It is very similar to most other racing games with a limit on how many layers you can have to create your masterpiece, but once you’re done, apply them to your helmet and show them off.

Graphically the game looks alright. I do believe they can get so much more out of the game as you’re usually racing in smaller areas, so pushing the graphics that little bit further would be nice. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to put a lot of effort into character models. They look outdated and it would have been nice to have more control over how my character looked rather than choosing from a limited selection of default character models.

Supercross enthusiasts hearing that newly implemented two-stroke engine and the classic four-stroke engine going crazy is like music to your ears, and hearing that crowd roar as you nail those jumps and win the race is always satisfying. Being a racing game, you can expect some bangers in the soundtrack, and for the most part, this is the case but there are also some pretty generic tracks. I’m not entirely sure the option was available, but I couldn’t find anywhere to alter the playlist, which is a bummer.

Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Game 5 has some great improvements over the past games Milestone has released, but they still have a long way to go to make a staple of a game for the Supercross/Motocross fans. Other than that, it’s a fun game to pick up if you’re a fan of the sport and want to do some easy drop-in drop-out online racing.

Written by: MrVibeAU