Here’s mud in your eye. Review

Here’s mud in your eye.

There’s something about mud and dirt that’s really relaxing. Animals take mud

baths to cool off and get rid of obnoxious pests, people take mud baths for a

soothing skin treatment, and kids play in the mud because it’s just plain fun.

Yep, mud and dirt are wonderful things.

Perhaps the best thing about mud and dirt is driving in it. Whether it be

in a car or on a bike, with a goat or on a boat, in the can with green eggs

and ham, driving in mud is tons of fun.

Unless it’s Jeremy McGrath Supercross 2000.

Supercross 2000 turns out to be a disaster in supercross. The idea

behind it is great, but the execution is horrible. It’s like a big aerial trick

that looked cool, but ends up with the rider squashed by his own bike.

One of the first things you’ll notice is the extremely bad control. Your bike is very touchy and tends to swarm all over the track, almost like it has a mind of its own. When hitting hard turns, you inevitably smash into the guardrail, and a slow and go approach will only put you at the back of the pack. Controlling these bikes ends up being a hefty chore rather than a good challenge.

The next thing you’ll notice is the extremely bad physics. They are so unrealistic it’s like being in a parallel dimension. Run into the barrier and you bounce. Hit a wall head on and you bounce. I think everything in this dimension must be made of rubber. Even hitting a “gap” in the barriers will cause you to bounce. When coupled with the game’s bad control, this little physics snafu definitely makes the game easier by leaps, bounds and bounces…but not in a good way.

Graphically, Supercross 2000 brings absolutely nothing exciting to

the Dreamcast table. With a system as powerful as the Dreamcast, you would think

that a pretty game is the least they could offer. Instead of the beautiful swan,

we get the ugly duckling. Textures are so bad the dirt doesn’t even look like

dirt.

What

tops it off, though, is the graphical oddity that causes the bike to look stationary.

Remember those kiddie games that had a little car you would steer in front of

a scrolling background? Well, this is just a high-tech version of that. The

track seems like it moves around your bike rather than the other way around.

This little feature is great for narcissists who think the world revolves around

them, but is nauseating for the rest of us.

The audio is also bad. The bikes sound like a meat grinder with a big chunk

of petrified turtle dung wedged into it. Trust me, I’ve seen enough supercross

events to know what a supercross bike sounds like. They could have done a better

job with a piece of cardboard poking into the spokes of a bicycle.

Another good idea gone sour is the Freestyle mode. Here, players are given

two minutes to perform “outrageous, hair-raising stunts.” Yeah right, all three

of them. The number of moves that you can perform is absurdly small, making

this mode a complete waste of your time. Leave the tricks to BMX bikes, fellas

– Supercross was meant for racing!

Thankfully, Supercross 2000 has a few shining moments. Players are

given a wide variety of courses to choose from in both indoor and outdoor arenas.

Bikes can also be tweaked somewhat with options to adjust the power, suspension,

and tires. There is also a track editor, but with the game performing as badly

as it does, it really ends up being a waste of time.

In the end, Jeremy McGrath Supercross 2000 is another one of those video game titles that was a good idea gone bad. With some TLC this one coulda been a contenda, but all we are left with is mud in the eye.