It’s been an age since I last touched a motorbike-focused game, aside from a demo of RiMS Racing. Recently I’ve been getting an itch to take on some motorbike racing, especially thinking back once again on all the great racing games I’d played on the PSP. Cue the Nintendo Switch eShop summer sale, with a very generous price for Monster Energy Supercross 3. At that price, I couldn’t say no.

The first thing the game had me do was create a racer. A simple enough process that also included choosing my number and how both name and number would be displayed on the back of the racing suit. Not all numbers are available, since there’s quite a few taken by the official racers in the game. I was happy with my choice. But then less happy with my performance in the tutorial race.

Yup. Driving a motorbike is not like driving a car. It took me too long to adapt to that, and even with the experience of a few hours I’m still making mistakes. With everything on the easiest settings, I still found myself getting overlapped by the other racers. I was pushing too much with the throttle. Getting the jumps completely wrong. And ending up off the track so many times.

Supercross is a very different event from the typical track-based racing. The throttle alone won’t win races, as made clear in one of the loading screen tips. Balance and flow are just as important. These tracks have many jumps, with a racer needing to take the most optimal line through these jumps to keep their speed. That is why leaning is an important trick to master. And it is that which I was having the most trouble with.

Across the many single event races I took part in after the tutorial, I found myself slowly getting to grips with how weight distribution helped. With the easiest settings active, the game was handling most of it. But I would still need to lean forward on the ground to get better speed. Lean back on a jump to get some high airtime. But though I was slowly understanding the control needed of this motorbike, I still couldn’t escape last.

And even though I couldn’t escape last, I swapped the single events for the career mode. The initial race of which I won! And then went back to business as usual at the back of the pack. Turns out I’d just found a track I really got into the groove of. And with a name of Training Ground, that should say everything about my skill at Monster Energy Supercross. But even with that terrible skill, I’ve been enjoying all these races.

A track creator exists in the game, and it is here I’ve found a place I can mess around. Creating tracks is a simple process of selecting a stadium to host the track. Then the starting zone. Then building up a route with the many track pieces available, bringing it to a close at that starting zone. Somewhere on that route, a finish line needs to be placed, since the starting zone is not where the laps tick over.

As long as a route can fit into that stadium and have no overlapping parts, it can be validated to allow for online play. Or, I just spend hours creating tracks purely for me without saving them, using the Try Now! button to completely ignore the track limits. Jumping, tricking, and crashing without consequence. And pausing to get into the free camera mode for photos. Bliss.

Monster Energy Supercross 3 is a racer I’ve been having a lot of fun with despite my obvious lack of skill with it. I’m wanting to continue with the career to see whether I can grab some points and hopefully become competitive. I’ll certainly continue messing around with the create mode, where there’s the possibility I go completely off the rails with track routes.

There’s a decent amount of tracks in the game, all being designed to have a unique flow to them. For those who understand supercross better than I do, I’m sure they’d recognise many of the names and tracks here. And would easily beat me in a race. Monster Energy Supercross 3 is one I can easily recommend. Though for those who might struggle with the skill needed to tackle this form of racing, wait for a sale if you do want to try it.

Images Taken From:
Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame 3 | Nintendo Switch [Docked]