When it comes to sports I have to admit that Motorcross wouldn’t be in my top five sports to put on the TV to watch. But then some sports, especially vehicle based sports do transport over to video games and I can enjoy them that way. So when MXGP Pro landed for me I was curious to see if it fell into the arcade sports style game or if it was more simulators based which with me being full on arcade gameplay fan over is a big factor of whether not I enjoy the game.

MXGP Pro focuses on the Motocross Championship and puts you in the role of a pro racer aiming to win that Championship by competing across twenty one tracks with sixty one riders to pick. Visually this game is stunning in the tracks and locations that you can race on so if you are a Motocross fan then the effort put in by the devs to recreate each of the tracks will enhance them even more when playing the game. The audio effects are great as well for all the bikes and very satisfying when screeching round the gravel corners on the tracks.

This game has a very punishing learning curve I found although fans of previous games will no doubt have more practice with it but for me, even with the tutorials and early on tracks I found it took me far too long to get to grips with the mechanics to not feel like I was messing up for the first hour or so of gameplay. Whilst the game does provide tools to learn, it also punishes you for not getting a handle on the gameplay pretty harshly which for me left me feeling out of my depth rather than just picking it up and playing which was frustrating to say the lease. More experienced players with this style of racer will have an easier time I am sure, and this really is a game for those who are experienced in this type of racing game.

That said, once I had managed to get the basics well enough to try my hand at the championship but the margin for error is pretty tight. I could make many compilation videos of me messing up that would forever torment me. This is certainly a less arcade style of racing game and if you can click with the gameplay you will no doubt get that rush of success far more than someone like me who constantly swore at the TV when I missed a corner or over shot a jump. The game certainly has enough variety in bikes to help you find the one that suits you because picking a more powerful bike before becoming comfortable with the mechanics will cause more crashes and rage moments for you. The attention to detail comes in again here as well as the bikes do all feel different enough to help find the one that works and are not just cosmetic in variation.

The physics can be played with to make it a little easier but playing it as intended is definitely a challenge even for experienced players of this genre which makes this a rather niche game instead of a pick up and play racer which makes it hard to recommend outside of fans of the genre. It certainly captures everything about Motocross that you would expect from different teams, sponsors and bikes to choose from and there is a good amount of tracks and challenges to keep you going but I do feel that the difficulty spike makes this a tough one to recommend.

Whilst a game that die-hard Motocross gaming fans will no doubt relish, MXGP Pro is just too much on the full simulator experience for me that prevented it from being fun and just made me turn to more arcade racer experiences like The Crew 2 instead. Controls are tricky to master making some of the tracks very challenging and overall gave me a frustrating time which I never felt fully comfortable with but the visuals and content made me wish I was better at the game in order to really appreciate it more.

The first Crew game was very interesting as Ubisoft took its first steps into a full racing experience title. Like Forza Horizon, The Crew was focused on a more arcade experience with an open world feel with an assortment of race types, cars and challenges to entertain. But it had its fair share of problems which for me all centred on the online elements which never really came together to match the potential it had but it was a solid foundation for Ubisoft to build on. Now we have the sequel and it has certainly taken its arcade action to the next level.

The Crew 2 is all about having fun and the freedom to find that fun anyway the player chooses. Using the Continental US as its massive playground, this time the action isn’t simply limited to driving amazing cars but instead now also includes air and sea vehicles. The scale of what players can do has really doubled up since the first game with gameplay very much building on what worked and adding to it with the option to now race planes and boats. By broadening the vehicles you can now race in and drive it immediately takes it out of the “just another racer” tag and sets it apart from its nearest competition.

One of my criticisms of the first game was the story campaign and objective races that could either boost or slow progression depending on how you found them. This time around however it is left open for the player to decide how they wish to advance and play the game. You begin as a rookie street racer looking to gain fame and reputation by winning races. Progression is marked by how many followers you have on social media, which increases each time you perform well or win in a race and completing some of the side activities dotted around the map. There are five levels you can reach: Rookie, Popular, Famous, Star and Icon. By achieving a new level you will unlock new event types and each of the four big racing families have their own specialised event with each type of vehicle catered for. There really is an abundance of things to do which is based on how much time you put into the game but you also have the freedom to just be in the world which adds a diversity the original missed.

Now if you are going to feature vehicles for land, sea and air then you need to make sure you have a massive map in order to allow all three to shine and The Crew 2 simply makes virtually the entire US your playground. Now the fast travel to events and garages from the original is still present but honestly having the ability to instantly morph into any of the vehicle types at will makes traversing the map in free roam far too satisfying to just cheat and use the fast travel system. Visuals are just stunning as well making using any vehicle a joy to just take in the surroundings when you free roam around with so many iconic US landmarks and locations including in the game to go and visit. Vehicle use has also been refined and the driving especially feels really fluid this time around and though vehicle damage really fails to play a part due to the arcade style of gameplay, it is still satisfying to hit top speed and just burn rubber down the road.

Customisation also plays a large part in the game with the ability to change body parts on cars and apply new colours and vinyl designs. Vehicle performance can be enhanced as well by the victory items you get from winning races which can be used to upgrade components which differing degrees of performance boosting. A great tip is to make the time to keep all your vehicles upgraded as high as you can especially the event specific ones so you are always good to go. The rewards for just playing the game make this readily playable for players of all skill types making it one of the more accessible racers you can pick up right now.

You can even form your own crew with three other players to enter events and up to eight players can free roam together in the world to get a boost to the number of followers you can collect. However at the moment there is no direct PvP races available, something Ubisoft has said will follow in the months to come. This is a little disappointing but as someone who never managed to enjoy the online elements on the original game due to its many issues, having a stripped back online element for now is not a game breaking thing for me though it is something that is noticeably missing.

Right now The Crew 2 is a fun arcade racing game that has built upon the foundation lay down by the original and enhanced the experience by adding new vehicle types and the focus on a more arcade experience based on freedom. The only real competition it will have will come in the form of Forza Horizon 4 but as that is an Xbox exclusive, for a multi platform release, The Crew 2 has followed the now highly praised Ubisoft formula of building on past mistakes to evolve the concept further. The game opens up and rewards players the more time they invest in the game and thankfully doesn’t have any micro-transactions in loot boxes to hinder that progression and enjoyment.

I was not sure what to expect from The Crew 2 after the first one, to be honest I had not expected a sequel at all but Ubisoft are clearly willing to and have invested efforts to continue the franchise and so far its ticking a lot of boxes for me after being heavily disappointed by other game titles in racing in the last year. It will be interesting to see how The Crew 2 is handled going forward with new content and community activities and especially when the true PvP element is added to the game. But for now there is a lot of value in the game just as it is.

Definitely a racer worthy of checking out and to just enjoy multi vehicle racing that invites players in and gives them the tools needed to just go and have fun.

The first DLC for Far Cry 5 was rather dark in tone and serious in the story it told. Now following on from Hours of Darkness comes the second piece of DLC and a very different tone indeed as the action moves to outer space and lands on Mars. Will say that is the DLC that grabbed my attention when I first saw the Season Pass graphic and especially after playing a certain side mission within the main campaign.

Just like Hours of Darkness, Lost on Mars puts the player in the role of one of the side characters in the main campaign, this time we get to play as Nick Rye who during the main story is a pilot who players helped with the birth of his first child. Returning home from a run to the store to grab some diapers, a mysterious ray of light stops his truck only to have the voice of Hurk explain to him that his help is needed and soon Nick is transported to Mars. Discovering that Hurk has been helping an AI construct, Nick is informed that an alien invasion is threatening Earth and that Hurk has brought him to Mars in order to help the AI prepare defences to stop that invasion.

All standard sci-fi story so far but it is very clear right from the off that by having Hurk as your ‘companion’ that this really is designed to be fun, which kicks off by discovering that Hurk is now…a floating head. That is right, somehow his body has been ripped apart by the DLC story’s main enemy but Hurk is kind of dealing with it rather well. All the jokes and humour really comes from Hurk and his take on everything that is happening as well as his own situation. The dialogue is often silly but that is why Hurk is such a fun character to have in the Far Cry series and having Hurk commentating on things during this DLC campaign certainly lightens the tone and gives it a very tongue in cheek sense of humour.

The main aim of the DLC is to help the AI called Anne by finding and rebooting on her terminals and facilities around the map which have all been infested with Martian Arachnids. The map this time feels much smaller than the one in Hours of Darkness but the campaign itself is far longer to complete with a few prerequisite side objectives that have to be completed before you can complete the story. By finding and rebooting all of Anne’s systems and facilities you begin to restore her power and robot forces needed to save the earth. Each terminal requires an energy core to be replaced and these have been taken by the various Arachnid Queens dotted around the map which will need to be hunted down and killed in order to retrieve them. Not only that but the critters have also taken the limbs of Hurk which will need to be retrieved so that Hurk can get his body back before returning to Earth.

Like the previous DLC, game mechanics from the main campaign are used slightly differently here. For example the shop is now a 3D printer which can be used to build new weapons and items to be equipped by Nick but instead of cash money players but instead gather the material Hemoleum, which can be looted from dead Arachnids and found in containers dotted around the map. The weapons have a fun sci-fi twist but start off with conventional pistol, assault rifle, shotgun and phaser pistol which through the campaign will get new blueprint designs unlocked unlocking different types of the standard weapons with some being stronger versions of the base type and a few really crazy ones thrown into the mix. Simply rebooting terminals and stations will make these designs available in the 3D Printer so a good tip is to save as much Hemoleum as you can for when they unlock as you will need the more deadly ones as the campaign goes on.

The action comes in the form of fighting the Arachnids which look pretty much like oversized space crabs and live under the sand of Mars and will be alerted to your presence when you walk on that sand. You will quickly be given a gravity belt which you can use to jet pack boost jumps to help reach higher levels or to avoid the sand which is very handy early on in the campaign until you can unlock and equip the more powerful weapons from the 3D printer. The Arachnids come in different types from your standard soldier time to the more armoured variety as well as flying space bats. The main challenge are the Queens as they are bigger, stronger and have the ability to shoot poison which will nullify the gravity belt and acid which can depower your equipped weapon.

The main issue with the combat is that it very quickly becomes repetitive and once you have strong enough weapons you will be able to pretty much just cheese your way through any Queen encounters and deal with swarms of Arachnids fairly easily as long as you have enough items on you such as grenades and space bandages to heal. The only troubling element is when they swarm all around you but its pretty simple to just jet pack your butt out of there to a higher location to deal with it. You simply go from facility to facility to clear out the Arachnids, reboot the terminal and restore power with an energy core. There are a few distractions in there such as the hunt to find Hurk’s body parts and for some reason Clutch Nixon found his way to Mars putting some of his stunt challenges on there to complete but overall, find terminals, reboot them and move on to the next one until you have finished them all and after a couple of hours not even the comedy aspect can prevent it from becoming a real chore.

But this is a fun bit of DLC and it is supposed to be fun and whilst the action can get very repetitive it does have some fun weapons to use and the story itself holds up rather nicely. Visually the map looks great and the new sound effects for the weapons make it stand apart from the main campaign enough. I did like how Larry the scientist from the main campaign who you help complete his teleporter is linked into the DLC by way of the notes he has left around the map as he became Anne’s first human helped but fell to the Arachnids. It certainly does enough as DLC to set itself apart from the usual Far Cry 5 gameplay which stops it from being more of the same but I do feel it just could have done with more side missions along the way to break up the gameplay a little more.

Lost on Mars is fun, not very long but not too short with enough comedy from Nick and Hurk to keep it very light. Gameplay can become a chore nearer the end but it is certainly worth playing. Unlike Hours of Darkness however, completing this does not unlock new game modes for it, it is simply a play and complete mini campaign and I managed to complete all the objectives and side stuff in my first playthrough to make replaying it pointless but Im sure I will revisit it at some point. Two DLCs down and the third and final one which will feature the Far Cry 5 take on Zombies and so far I have been impressed with the extra Season Pass content for the game.

Spending time in space with Hurk was not something I expected to do with Far Cry 5 but it was certainly worth the effort and certainly offers a fun new story for fans of the main game to enjoy and get some smiles and laughs from for a few hours.