Sound:  
The sound in the game isn’t all that prevalent. There is a tune playing behind the menus, but the default setting for music in-game is OFF. If you turn it on in-game, you merely get to hear the tune from behind the menus playing while you race. The sound effects are basic, but are well fitted to the game. It basically is a sound of a motor running and the occasional crash when you go bailing into the side of the road or another racer or group of racers. The sound serves as an adequate backdrop for the game, but is by no means innovative. Of course, most people don’t turn to a motorcycle game for the next big thing in sound, so this is pretty standard fare.

Control:  
There are two words that spring to mind when I think of MX 2002’s controls: simple and sporadic. It is nice that the game consists of a simple control scheme. A Button accelerates, B is the brakes. That’s pretty much all you need to get going. The L and R Buttons are for tricks, which aren’t necessary in the main racing mode, but are used primarily in the freestyle format. The control pad turns you and is used to control the height of the jumps. Press down at the peak of a hill, you jump higher, press up and you jump lower and straighter. All told, I think the control scheme is very effective for this game. It remains simple throughout, without making itself unnecessarily complex in any aspect. However, despite its simplicity, it is far from ideal. Turning at times becomes a slow, unforgiving process. There are many points on several tracks where there are a series of minor turns, and at times, your cycle can’t recover in time to make all of them without a perfectly timed series of control pad motions. Now, I’m not asking for autopilot by any means, but there is very, very little margin for error at many points in the game. This can be frustrating when you run a fine race, reach a series of turns and crash once or even twice, thus throwing you out of contention. While I speak of crashing, the crashing among racers can be a very annoying aspect of the game. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the process of crashing amongst the racers. IF you go into a corner with a group of two or three racers, there is a good chance you will crash; this isn’t the annoying part. The part that bothers me is the fact that the racers who crash seem to be completely random. By contrast, in Excitebike 64, it is taught to you that if you slide your back tire through the front tire off a racer, they will crash. MX 2002 seems to have no sort of standard idea such as this. One time you may go sliding into someone’s back tire and they will crash. Other times, you may do the exact same thing and you will crash. It makes no real sense. If four racers go into a corner at the same time, generally three will crash, and it seems that the one who survives merely had his name drawn out of a hat. These are the main complaints that I can really verse about the controls. For the most part, the simplistic scheme holds its own to good affect.

Gameplay:
MX 2002 provides three main types of races. The Quick race is a one-time, weekend style race consisting of two races: a preliminary heat, and either a final or a last chance heat, depending on how you fared in the prelims. This is the simplest mode to jump into and play if you just are looking for a quick fix for about 10-15 minutes or so. The next mode is the Championship mode. This is where you race throughout a season type format, accumulating points from each race to carry on throughout the circuit until the champion is crowned at the end of the season depending on who has the most race points at the end of the final race. This circuit consists of many races and would be very adequate for fans of the game that desire a longer-term goal than simply winning the immediate race at hand. The last mode is the US Open. This is similar to the Quick race format but is set against the backdrop of the Las Vegas raceway. Each mode has three different formats within it. 125cc and 250cc are basic races, with the 250cc providing a slightly faster pace than 125cc. Freestyle puts you on a track by your lonesome and asks you to go around a jump-intensive track performing tricks on your ride. You gain points for performing tricks, and lose some of them when you crash. The freestyle mode is a nice change of pace from the normal races, if I do say so myself. There are definitely enough tracks in here to keep it fresh for those deeply attached to MX racing.

Multiplayer:
Ummmm.. there isn't one. Sorry.

OVERALL:
I may not be the biggest advocate for motorcycle racing, but I can appreciate it as something that many people enjoy and as a sport that I could never in a million years do. MX 2002 may not be the greatest motorcycle game ever produced, but it is definitely an adequate title to please those die-hard MX fans that need their fix. As a first generation title, I can tip my hat to THQ for being the first to delve into this format and not fall flat on their faces. It holds its own for the most part, but a few minor issues keep it from being a truly over the top winner in my mind. If you are big into MX, this game will satisfy your cravings. If you are a fan off racing games, you may like to give her a spin, but to the casual racing gamer, it may not be enough to hook you.

 

The Lowdown on  MX 2002 featuring Ricky Carmichael Aesthetics: Below Average Control: Below Average Gameplay: Below Average Multiplayer: Sound: Average Innovation: 3/6 Lasting Appeal: 2/6 Overall: Below Average! "Has Some Detrimental Problems"