A fine entry into the off-road MX and ATV racing genre
People who have played MX racers and ATV racers will be used to muddy tracks and dust, but MX vs. ATV Supercross Encore offers a rich mix of different environmental features that they have crammed together. Common sense suggests that packing environmental features so closely together will look bad and make the racing uneven, but it actually adds another level of complexity to the game that many other ATV and MX racing games lack.
Customize your vehicles and watch your body panels shatter
The first Destruction Derby games taught us that we enjoy taking damage while racing, and that is something that MX vs. ATV Supercross Encore offers. The early Gran Turismo games taught us that modifying vehicles gives a racing game more of an edge, and you can customize your vehicles with this game too. The duel controls for pulling tricks adds a smooth depth to the game, which is only rivalled by the Tony Hawk games and maybe Snowboarders 2 for the Playstation One. The game isn’t just about tricks, it is mostly about racing, but the tricks are what turn this game from a standard racer into something more interesting.
Revamping and redefining the off-road racing genre
Make no mistake, MX vs. ATV Supercross Encore is not nearly as good or genre redefining as MX vs. ATV Reflex because Reflex changed the way that off-road racing games are designed. Reflex got so many things right that it deserves to be played just to pay homage to the way it changed off-road ATV and MX racing games. However, Supercross is a fine entry to the genre and deserves its place in your gaming library. Other such racing games are noted for becoming dull after a very short while, but this game has so many facets that it is highly replayable. The in-game speed/movement animations are also well executed.
