Monster Jam Showdown Review: Backflipping Into Mediocrity

No matter how much our inner child would crave it, the reality is that very few of us will ever get the chance to drive a real monster truck. Unless you’re born into a generational touring truck show or end up with a vast fortune of cash and really nothing else to do with it, there’s almost no chance of you ever climbing into one of these 12-foot behemoths.

This is where video games, as they often do, come to fill the void. Now there’s a new one on the block – Monster Jam Showdown.

As you’ve probably figured out, It’s the official game of Monster Jam. For our readers in the US, that needs no explanation but it’s not exactly a household name in the UK. Starting in 1992, it’s gone on to become the biggest monster truck show of them all. It’s loud, over-the-top and a little bit ridiculous.

That’s a vibe Showdown captures immediately as you boot up the game. An intro video with lots of loud guitar riffs, bright purple and yellow graphics and clips of trucks doing their insane things is thrust upon you.

The core of the game is focused on the Showdown Tour, effectively a career mode which takes place across Death Valley, Colorado and Alaska, albeit quite freeform.

Rather than being shoehorned into any one way to take on the career, a set of events across three core disciplines are available to you – the trademark stunts events which see you try to score as many points as possible, standard racing and also Rivals which pits you head-to-head against another truck on a short course.

Any event can be taken on in any truck, provided you’ve unlocked them. There are 40 and it seems the big hitters are covered, but I must admit my Monster Jam knowledge extends no further than once having a Hot Wheels slime set with Grave Digger and El Toro Loco as a kid, so I couldn’t tell you if any big ones are missing. Guess which two I’ve used the most.

The trucks themselves are beautifully modelled, down to having multiple real-world liveries unlockable and with a few neat extra touches like Grave Digger’s skull flag hanging off the rear of the wobbly, destructible arms of Zombie. Each drives the same, so it’ll come down to which ones you like the look of the most.

Similarly, the environments themselves look fantastic and feel alive as you’re racing through. Be it dust storms in Death Valley or the crushable snow of Alaska, a great job has been done of making the environment feel alive.

Really, though, that’s where the glowing positivity ends with Showdown, and the first gripes are apparent pretty quickly.

The driving physics are passable for the arcade racer this is (sorry if you had your hopes up for a true simulation) when things are going fine, but they quickly fall apart as soon as you cock something up. Misplacing the truck after a stunt will quite often turn it into a crisp packet blowing in the wind and flinging it around aimlessly, which I’m pretty confident isn’t how a five-tonne hunk of steel and fibreglass would behave.

On the flip side, any contact in wheel-to-wheel racing feels like both trucks have suddenly been trapped in quicksand. This happens a lot because the AI are brainless.

Once those start to grate on you, many other things will. Like the obnoxious background music, and repetitive commentator. Fortunately, you can turn those things off – unlike the big ‘check the stunt list on the pause menu’ prompt that appears front and centre on the screen despite the fact you’re in a 15x combo.

Plus, once you’re a little done with the Showdown tour, there’s not much else to do. Split-screen mode I suspect is a welcome addition and probably where Showdown would shine best if you’ve had kids to jump on with, but it’s not much for the solo player.

There is the option of online multiplayer, but in the pre-release review period, I wasn’t able to find a session despite multiple attempts so I can't say really how good it is. With the game now in early access, that has resulted in a single four-player lobby. I fear it is dead on arrival, which isn't helped by the events on offer being no different to those on the Showdown tour.

Unless you’re obsessed with Monster Jam and want to take in lovingly crafted digital renditions of your favourites or have a young kid who wants to smash some trucks up for a couple of hours, it’s hard to earnestly recommend Showdown. It’s a forgettable arcade racer at best. 

Reviewed on PlayStation 5