Giveaway of the Day - Monster Truck Trials Complete Edition

Monster Truck Trials complete edition:

Introduction:

Today’s game is basically the later version of the two games given away back in July 09. We got two halves of a game over three days. Now we are getting the same version that’s always available for free over at Gametop; (See link at the end of the review). Today’s download is 54.1Mb expanding to 259Mb once installed.

The default instal path is:

C:\Games\MTTCE\MTTCE

You will need to create a desktop shortcut from this as there are no shortcuts created when installing the game.

The original game which was only half of today’s offering was posted on the 17th July and only received a positive 36% of 578 votes with 78 comments, most of which were quite negative about the game. You can read all the comments HERE. Then the second half called Monster Truck Trials Arctic was given away on July 19th and received only 31% of 555 with 63 comments which you can read HERE

There is no desktop or start menu shortcut installed, so you’ll need to create these yourself. If you aren’t too sure how to do the start menu short cut (or the desktop) you can find a short tutorial over in the giveawayoftheday frums HERE

The Game:

The game opens up to a simple main menu with continue, (indicating that level progress can be saved), new game, options, help and exit. The options menu is very simple with only music and sound options. The help menu only describes the key bindings available in game which are:

Roll Left…………..………..L. cursor
Roll Right……………..……R. cursor
Forwards…………………..up cursor
Move Backwards…..…down cursor
Nitro…………………………Space
Pause…………………….…Esc

No explanation of power ups such as nitro or air is mentioned.

When starting a new game you have to set up your player’s profile. You can set up to 6 profiles (maybe more, but there only appears to be 6 slots). Once this is done you progress to the level selection page of which there are only 8 levels. To progress from one level to the next you have to attain a bronze medal. Once this is done the next level is unlocked. There are two vehicles to choose from, Bigfoot and Buggy (which looks more like a van than a buggy), though the buggy is locked at the beginning of the game.

The game reminds me of Trials 2: Second Edition, though Trials 2 has far more sophisticated graphics, more levels; that are much,’ much’ harder and also has an online scoring system that is worldwide. This game appears to have no high scores table. Races are based on times, but if you don’t attain at least a bronze time the game is null and void, that is, there is no record of your game play. Even then the only evidence you’ve attained anything is through the games save system once you’ve attained a medal, which is automatic.

I ended up crashing on my first attempt so automatically pressed R for reset (as you do in a lot of racing games< ?em>), but all that did was create some weird graphical glitch that made my vehicle fall through the levels graphic into nothingness. So if you get stuck, you have to restart the game by exiting, and starting from afresh. There seems to be some bugs in this game, but, that said, I really enjoyed playing it for a limited time. (Trying to beat my times, and progress to the next level. After failing to beat the bronze time the first full race I completed, I then managed to whiz through three levels, even attaining a silver medal on my sixth try. Unfortunately wanting to post this short review as early as possible stopped me from exploring the game further. I think the buggy will unlock once you complete all levels. I’m assuming it will have a different response (that is; react differently to the controls) when running, so effectively expands the game to 16 levels.

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Video:

You can watch a couple of You Tube videos of the first few levels of game play HERE and HERE

I wasn’t able to capture any screen images during game play because every time I took a screenshot the computer froze, however, the images you see were courtesy of Gametop.

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Conclusion:

Although a very basic driving game, I really enjoyed playing it and think it’s got some replay value, (though not a lot, lol). Only the forwards and backwards keys are needed most of the time which makes the game relatively easy to play, though you will need to get used to using both keys in combination so as to keep the Truck relatively parallel to the ground, though crashing through the red drums that caused explosions sometimes knocked the vehicle off it’s route, so maybe you should try to avoid these if you can by using the roll right and left controls. Though as someone mentioned when this was previously given away. Every so often you are able to pick up nitro packs. Use these when you come to a steep incline as otherwise you may find you have to make more than one attempt at scaling the hill, and in this game time is of the essence. There’s also air packs which I didn’t figure out the use for (though I suspect it’s used for the tyres to make them harder, which may affect the way the vehicle lands (or bounces).

You can pick up an excellent 3D racing game from Steam called Smashing Toys for just a few dollars more than what this game costs if you were to purchase it; or for around the same price as today’s giveaway, two fantastic games called Driver: Parallel Lines that’s reminicient of Grand Theft Auto or Toca Race Driver 3. From good Old Games you can get a great Stock Car Racing game called Flatout for about the same price as well; (Just Google GOG for details) To be honest, apart from Trabi Racer that we got over a year ago, this has to be one of the better vehicle based games we’ve been given to date despite its limitations. As I said above, I have enjoyed playing it and think its worth at least 6 out of 10, especially now that it has both halves in the same game.

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Other Info

The game is free standing which means it can be played from a memory stick or even from a CD, though playing it from a CD will probably get a lot of lag.

Music:

The in game music can be changed simply by exchanging the MP3 files found in the following folder, with whatever music you want to change them to. There are four files called Level1, Level2, Level3 and Menu. You will have to change the name of the music you are replacing them with to the same names as quoted above:

C:\games\MTTCE\Data\Music

Other free racing/vehicle based games:

Check out the Wheeled games thread for lots of free racing games. I’ve not maintained the thread for a long time, but there’s plenty to keep you occupied if your forte is racing games. Just click HERE to be redirected. You’ll also find some racing games in the free games synopsis HERE
The game is always free from Gametop. the only difference is that you have to watch out for toolbars and having your home page hijacked. It definitely has a box that needs to be unchecked otherwise you will find next time you click o your internet icon it will take you to Gametop. You just have to uncheck the small box during installation. Also, whenever you close the game down, it opens up your browser to Gametops home page. Since we last got a vehicle based game Gametop has acquired more games involving racing, for example Sky Track (similar to star racing), Nitro Racing and Motoracing. You can find all these games HERE

There’s also an excellent racing game that you may like as an alternative called ATV Quadro Racing, which you can also download from Gametop HERE
. It has good graphics and the feel of the game is okay. It may be too easy for the experienced racing game fan, but if you’re not a regular player you may find some challenges there. You can earn points by doing jumps and tricks while in the air. It doesn’t have the same physics as today’s giveaway, but it’s okay:

UPDATE:

I’ve just discovered that the game has been updated in a couple of ways. The author has changed the title of the game and added a restart button, which can be used at any time during a stage by clicking the Esc button. You are then given the option of ending the stage, restarting or continuing. Nice one developer, glad you listened to our feedback the first time around.

I found this game to be exceptionally simplistic. Press the up arrow to move forwards and occasionally press the space bar for a speed boost… and that’s about it. There’s no steering and completing a level seems to be a matter of choosing the right place to use your nitro.

For monster truck fans this game might keep them engaged for a while, and it may well keep younger kids amused for a few hours, but it’s not for me – I’m going back to Larva Mortus.