A Motocross game made in conjunction with super-brand Red Bull, not something you come across everyday. And after playing this, something you certainly don’t want to. Instead of building upon the stellar reputation that Trials HD created for this genre, it destroys it.
X-Fighters takes you ‘across the world’ racing and stunting from Mexico to London, with the basic aim of doing stuff to get medals, and get fans. A rather plain and simple objective, yes; it fits the game perfectly well. Offering a measly selection of only five modes (one of which is training), you’re not exactly spoilt for choice – – and when they’re all pretty much the same thing, it doesn’t really matter which you choose.
Passing mode and stage selection, you’re thrown into a stunt track right away, regardless of which area you select, each looks very similar, with only minor changes to the shape of the track. Each one consists of ramps, ramps, and oh, ramps. Worst of all, no track lasts longer than 30 seconds, so after jumping all of the three ramps and failing to pull off some tricks, it’s over before you have the chance to redeem yourself.
As you’re throwing your bike over the ‘countless’ ramps, you’re required, or encouraged to perform stunts in order to impress fans and gain points. Certain modes force you to complete a predetermined set of trick within the non-retraceable stage, whilst others you just need to reach a set amount of points to pass. How imaginative, I know. Sounds easy too, but you’d be wrong. If you’re unfortunate enough to be playing this game in one of the point based events, standard backflips aren’t gonna get you anywhere. For the big points, you need to pull off some real moves, and unless you’re a good guesser or have an exceptionally good memory, it’s going to be tough.
This is where X-Fighters’ unnecessarily awkward controls come into play. Performing an average trick like a ‘heel click’ is one mean feat, for any and all tricks, you need to hold down a specific button combination, and keep it held for as long as you can to maximise your score. But the problem with this is that these button combinations come in all different crazy varieties. For example, holding down RT, LB, B, and Y; now, my fingers just aren’t meant to be stretched like that. With an average jump lasting around three seconds, there’s no time for delay either. These kind of combinations also force you to let go of the accelerate button (A), so you lose all of your momentum whilst airborne, and upon landing, have to reaccelerate again.
Although a challenge to maneuver in such ways God never intended, it’s not as big of a problem in the pre-designated trick mode, but when it comes to ‘freestyle’, you have to pull these tricks from memory. With such complicated combinations, you’re only going to get them from luck, or by memorising one simple trick. (Oh, and you need to unlock your tricks, but, there’s no point at all.) If all hope is lost, then you can open your ‘Trick Book’ and get the commands for what you want. However in your 30 seconds of stunting, why waste the time?
Music and voiceovers are a big issue for me in X-Fighters, both of them being equally terrible. Each of the seven areas has a different music track, but it plays through all of that area’s stages, and the menus. Now that wouldn’t be a problem if the music was half-decent, but every piece is bland, lifeless, and dreary, so much so, I had to play my own music over it, just to get rid of the awful ‘noise’.
Then there’s the announcer; quite possibly the least enthusiastic voice I’ve ever heard. As a commentator of extreme sport, you’d expect screaming, shouting and the usual awesomely over exaggerated commentary, but no. All this guy has to offer is a quiet “That must’a hurt†every now and then, and a ending comment along the lines of “That was greatâ€. The severe lack of inflection in his voice saddens me, and makes the gameplay even worse.
Finally, the graphics. What can you expect from a dirt track? Certainly not any vibrancy. You’ll race past brown plane, after brown plane, after grey plane. Not a sight for sore eyes to say the least. How hard could it be to perfect a dirt ramp, especially since the same one is reused throughout the game. Everything is poorly crafted, with very noticeable jagged edges and bad quality textures; it’s really not fun to look at.
X-Fighters is awful. Do not buy it, or you will part of your dignity will go down with this game – in flames. It’s a dirty, poorly made, failed attempt at a sidescrolling bike game, and makes Red Lynx cringe at the thought of what Trials HD would’ve been if it had failed… badly.
