Championship Motocross 2001 Featuring Ricky Carmichael
Score: 60% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: THQ Developer: THQ Media: Cart/1 Players: 1 Genre: Racing
Graphics & Sound: The news is good. Championship Motocross 2001 does a nice job portraying the winding tracks and smooth motion of motorcycle racing, and although the whine of a 250cc engine may get old after a while, there's some good music in the background. Menus are well-done, and the configuration screens for setting up your bike's equipment have a cool wireframe look to them. Riding animations are simple and very limited in number.
Gameplay: Motocross 2001 tries to bring thrill-a-minute motorcycle dirt-racing to Game Boy Color. THQ succeeds in some areas and fails in others. It really boils down to a classic case of working with a system's limitations. The strongest area of gameplay is straight racing. With a large number of tracks and riders, as well as the choice to race on 125cc or 250cc bikes, Motocross 2001 has plenty going for it. Pure race modes include Championship, Single Event and the THQ U.S. Open. In these modes, you compete against three other bikers to navigate jumps, bumps and hairpin curves to be first at the finish line. You can pick from a slew of riders, all champs and circuit pros like Ricky Carmichael. After looking at the layout of the track and the conditions, you get to set up the bike to your liking, customizing everything from tires to gear ratio. Then it's off to the races. In the longer tournament-style modes, you'll race individual heats to come out first and square off for bragging rights by winning the whole enchilda. The less developed mode is Freestyle, which lets you run a short track alone to try and score points by performing radical tricks. Though it may sound defeatist, this mode could have been left out and nobody would have noticed. Okay, those who wanted a direct translation of motocross games they played on consoles would be disappointed, but Game Boy Color slaps Freestyle Mode down like a pre-karate Ralph Macchio. It just doesn't work! The tricks number 7, and you'll only be able to make 2 or 3 work consistently, so you end up watching the AI opponents blow by you while your rider partakes in an endless dirt-eating contest. Yuck! For the rare times that you come out ahead, lack of variety alone damns this mode to a place in the closet with videogaming's other skeletons.
Difficulty: I don't have to reiterate how depressing Freestyle Mode is, but the race modes have some 'gotchas' as well. One of the weirdest things is how even a slight touch at the edge of a track means immediately dumping your bike. Now, maybe it's just me, but aren't these dirt bikes on a dirt track? I mean, if this were 'Explosive Motocross 2079,' I'd understand landmines on the track, but it seems cheap that going a little wide during a corner means farming that ugly face-plant. Otherwise, once you learn the tracks, getting to first and staying there is a matter of tight control and correctly setting up the bikes. If you can overcome the frustration, there's some good racing in them 'thar hills.
Game Mechanics: THQ didn't skimp on options for Motocross 2001 and this applies both to controlling the bikes and setting them up. Since this style of riding involves a lot of time in the air, you have to be concerned with horizontal orientation during a jump. Using the D-Pad to move Up and Down changes the tilt of the bike mid-air. This lets you get bigger air, but can mess you up on a landing. If you're tilted too far back, the landing will be ugly, but the same goes for hitting a slope or bump tilted too far forward. So, mastery of each track means learning how to use the landscape to maximum advantage. Whether you choose the 125cc or more powerful 250cc bikes, set-up is mighty important. Motocross 2001 lets you change Tires to match track conditions, Pipes to skew toward top-speed or acceleration, Suspension, Sprockets and Power Tune. All changes either affect how the bike handles or whether it's geared toward speed or acceleration. As with other racing games, everyone has their individual style and preference for these areas, so it's nice that THQ gave us the option to make changes. Depending on whether you feel like gambling, it's possible to adjust Game Options so that conditions are consistent or variable, and you're also able to adjust Sound, Difficulty or Display Options. The save system is a simple password that comes up when you complete an event, and is entered from the main screen to continue. There's nothing terrible about Championship Motocross 2001 except that darn Freestyle Mode, but everything here smells like Average Game. If you love motocross racing, there's a certain challenge to completing the tracks and trying out different bike configurations, but most of us will be happy to play something else on the road until we get home to a console or PC.
-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock
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