Motocross Mania 3

Given my track record with particularly violent racing games, I'm the first person to say that we need some good and nasty sports games, where you can trick like the best and kick ass like the baddest. Unfortunately, Motocross Mania 3 is none of these, being instead a poor maclange of basic stunt tricks, some seriously absurd looking player models, and a fighting system that's the racing equivalent of a button masher.

The gameplay is fairly typical, although you'll quickly find that the tracks are laid out in an extremely open, yet punishing format. You can generally go anywhere, but it's so easy to get lost on the way between checkpoints that you'll need a fair bit of luck to get through each level.

Fighting, as I mentioned earlier, is pretty tedious, with only some very basic moves, a variety of weapons, and the occasional trick to aid you. One bright point is the melee levels, where you'll be in a fenced-in area with all of your race opponents sentenced to a massive winners take all competition, in an attempt to see who comes out on top. Now if they could've designed it so that it'd be fun to race motorbikes around inside a small confined space, all while trying to pound the snot out of your enemy, then it would've been fun.

Finally, in the realm of graphics, nothing much stands out as truly good or truly bad, save one item. The player models in this game are absolutely ridiculous. For instance, while the men appear normally proportioned, the women appear grossly' um' endowed. One can't look at most of the female riders in this game without wondering what sort of severe back problems they have.

Jokes aside, Motocross Mania 3's high point is that it's a really inexpensive game. Still, I wouldn't waste money on this, even at bargain prices.