MUD World Tour

The World Tour contains 55 events that can be unlocked with credits as you play the game. When you pick an event to participate in you also pick one out of the four different heroes that you can play as. Each hero has a certain skill towards particular type of events. MUD also adds a skill up system, as you progress through the World Tour you can use credits that you earn to level up different skills for your heroes in order to make racing a bit easier.

It’s an interesting take for a racing game, but to be honest feels like of useless and unnecessary. Players can also unlock cards that give you bonuses on how many credits you’re able to earn at the end of the race, you may also equip and unlock multiple helmets for your heroes as vanity items. Heroes have 4 different skills, endurance, intuition, agility, and strength. Endurance makes your energy drink boosters last longer, intuition gives you more boost when you land a successful scrub on the ground, agility let’s you make turns easier, and strength allows your bike to land more smoothly on bumpy ground.

The events can range from just a normal race, elimination mode, checkpoint race, head-to-head racing, and trick battles. Race events are just your typical racing events, you race against other AI for the first place with several laps around the track. MUD adds 2 intriguing mechanics to racing, one of the mechanics is referred to as  Scrub and another one called Burning Start. Burning Start is something you can do right at the beginning of the race if you hold down your brake button and then let go right when the gate goes down, your bike gets an extra speed boost which allows you to overtake the first position in the race from the start.

Scrub is gameplay mechanic that only be executed on certain ramps throughout the track. Once you get near a slope a prompt message comes up telling you to hold X to scrub and as you’re about to land you have to let go off the X, and if you land successfully your bike gains another speed boost. Originally scrubbing was a bit hard to understand on when to let go off the X button, and when not to. However, after playing the game for a couple of more hours it became easier to understand, and I was able to master it. Being able to understand these mechanics is essential to winning the harder events that appear later in the game.

The handling in the game is good, and this is one of the most important thing in racing games. If the handling is bad, then the game is just not going to be enjoyable and it won’t be fun to play, there is a difference between learning how to handle your vehicles and just the game having horrible handling. Fortunately  this is not the case with MUD: FIM Motocross World Championship, the developers have nailed the handling mechanic in this game, kudos to them.

Elimination mode is all about trying to stay in the first place all the time until everyone else is eliminated by the clock. In my opinion elimination mode are the quickest events and ways you can earn credits if you’re trying to unlock something rather quickly. I find these types of events more fun than the racing ones due to the fact that they’re quick and there is no mistake for error, especially early in the race. Checkpoint races are also fun, you race against time until you hit a specified number of checkpoints in order to score first place, there are no other opponents here.

Head-to-head races are probably the most difficult ones due to the fact that the AI you’re racing against is more aggressive and is excellent at catching up to you when you’re in the first place. Best thing you can do against head-to-head races is to nail every possible scrub sections, and be able to keep up the momentum throughout the entire track until finish. If you can’t perfect the track and master it, you will be having a hard time beating these events.

Trick battles are very easy, you do these events in an arena with multiple ramps, the rider goes up the ramp and performs different tricks in midair to score points. You may earn extra bonus score by being on a streak without crashing, once you have reached the specified score and a timer has ran out you will be placed in first place. The player can unlock more tricks by spending credits in the Trick Shop which is located in the World Tour menu.

Official Mode

Official Mode is a simple championship mode, you choose a racer and the championship you want to participate in. There are two different championships you can participate in, each championship contains 12 races. Once you’ve selected your championship you can change around which tracks you want to play in what order and difficutly.

Once all of that is set, you start the championship and race through 12 races in a row, every race earns you points based on which place you got in a race. Once all 12 tracks are finished, you will get your total score and tell you what place have you earned in the entire championship overall. You may also do custom quick races in Official Mode if you just want to mess around and play your favorite tracks.

The Multiplayer

Multiplayer in MUD is a lot of fun, there are no lag issues or any sort of connection problems. In MUD you can join a quick match, custom match, or host your own lobby with any type of racing event, track, number of laps, collision on/off and of course the number of players. However, during my playtime with the game it was very hard to find someone to play against on the PlayStation Vita. Not many people are aware of this game, nor was the marketing any good either.

Sometimes I got lucky and was able to join someone’s game, other times I had to make  my own lobby and was forced to wait around 5-20 minutes for anyone to join my game. Once I found people to play with it was a complete blast and the competitive aspect was fun, I just wish there were more people who knew about this game so I could get more value out of it. What’s weird to me is that the Leaderboards contain over 800 players, but I can barely find anyone to race against, so I am not sure if it’s a technical issue or if there is just not enough people overall who own this game on the PlayStation Vita.

Overall, this is a decent racing game for a handheld. The only 2 big issues I have with are the graphics and lack of multiplayer games. PlayStation Vita is capable of far more than this kind of graphics and it has been proven with other games before, this really looks like a game from the PlayStation 2 era. I am also hoping that later in the future it will be easier to find multiplayer games, this is a fun game to play online on PlayStation Vita.

The game was reviewed on the PS Vita.

About MUD – FIM Motocross World Championship:

Game Overview:
MUD FIM Motocross World Championship is the only game that includes three official competitions: the MX1 and MX2 championships and the epic Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations. The brand new game features 14 different bikes, 84 riders (including stars such as Tony Cairoli, Steven Frossard, Ken Roczen, Jeffrey Herlings, Ryan Villopoto, Chad Reed and Ryan Dungey) and 12 official tracks. Besides, the all-new game engine features fully deformable terrain conditions and a realistic MX handling model. Thanks to the physical handling of the bike in the ground phases and the implementation of the typical Motocross manoeuvre called ‘scrub’ in the aerial phases, MUD is the first motocross game that allows players to really make a difference both on land and in the air, just like the best riders in the World.

Publisher : Black Bean

Developer : PQube

Platforms : PC, PS3, X360 and PSV

Release Date : Already Released (PC PS3 X360)
Sept 2012 (PSV)

Stay tuned to Gamingbolt.com for more news and updates.

About MUD – FIM Motocross World Championship:

Game Overview:
Milestone has today released new screenshots for MUD – FIM Motocross World Championship, that will hit Sony’s handheld console, PlayStation® Vita, in September 2012.

Publisher:Milestone

Developer:Milestone

Platforms:PSV

Release Date:By this month

Stay tuned to Gamingbolt.com for more news and updates.

As per the PR, features from the home console release include:

– FIM MX1 and MX2 World Championships and the amazing Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations, a massive and internationally recognised worldwide motocross annual event.

– Monster Energy Trick Battle Mode: Set across six sensational arenas, from the Czech Republic to Spain and USA. The Monster Energy branded mode allows players to nail all the extreme tricks from the motocross freestyle scene.

– World Tour: Players will take on the roles of four heroes, each with their own skills and abilities. Each hero has a special Talent, and each Talent is related to a special challenge from the World Tour. Riders can be customized in several ways changing their helmets, taking energy drinks or becoming members of teams and crews.

Developed and published by Milestone, the game features 14 different bikes, 84 riders and 12 tracks. Previously released DLC will also be available for the Vita version.

With teams made up of the top three riders from each country, this is a season ending challenge that features only the very best stars of the motocross world.

The game is developed by Milestone and published worldwide by Black Bean Games. It is available on the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Guest starring in the 4th development diary is Vanni Oddera, Motocross freestyle champion who has collaborated with the Milestone team to help bring to life The Monster Energy Trick Battle Mode. Thanks to his expertise, which has been gained on some of the world’s most famous freestyle arenas, Vanni Oddera was able to offer lots of advice and input into the development of the game in order to make a more realistic in-game freestyle experience.

Vanni Oddera commented ”It was very exciting to work with the guys at Milestone. It’s been a blast to share my knowledge with them to help create MUD’s Monster Energy Trick Battle Mode, which I think is an amazing virtual experience.” He continued “In the video diary, everyone can learn the techniques needed in order to be able to perform amazing tricks. I hope everyone will enjoy playing MUD just as much as I enjoyed helping to create the trick battle mode. MUD is a real adrenaline blast and definitely captures the excitement of motocross!”

MUD FIM Motocross World Championship is scheduled for release on Friday 4th May 2012 for the Xbox360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

Black Bean Games and Milestone have released a new dev diary for their upcoming racing title, MUD FIM Motocross World Championships. In this video, the devs talk about what technologies they used to develop the game. They also talk about some features like terrain deformation and character animation and the technology they used on these features.

MUD FIM Motocross World Championship releases on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC this April.

Stay tuned for more info.