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The Plot:  "Motor Mayhem" seems like parts and pieces of a few other pop culture offerings put together: a little of "Rollerball"'s attitude, a touch of "Tron", a helping of "Mad Max" and other odds and ends. The game launches players into the VCL (Vehicle Combat League), where they choose from one of a handful of mutant-ish characters (all of which appeared generic), each of whom has a completely different vehicle. Once the character is chosen, the player is inserted into one of several boards. The unfortunate element of some of the boards is that players can hit what appears to be futuristic trampolines, launching them into an upper level of the board. This doesn't work particularly well (half the time, I get launched into the air, hitting the back wall of the board and then falling back to the lower level) and there seemed to be a fair amount of instances where I was zipping around in the empty lower level while the other combatants I was supposed to be chasing after were somewhere above me. On a positive note, the game offers a ton of different weapons, ranging from missiles to laser cannons to mines and more. There's quite a few weapons scattered through each of the weapons and once they're grabbed, they eventually appear once again a while later. Although the fast-moving gameplay does occasionally make it difficult to target an enemy, they often back themselves into a corner. With the amount of weapons available, once you get a decent shot, it's a bit too easy to simply unleash hell on whatever opponent is nearest. While that's fun for a little while, it really occured to me after a while that I was having a difficult time not winning. The enemy AI isn't particularly good - while they occasionally will lock onto you and fire away, it's not difficult to shake them. Players have a couple of options on how to approach play: there's a Deathmatch option, where players face 6 opponents in an arena of their choice. The other way is "career", where you face off against an increasing number of opponents (a couple at first, then more) in computer-picked arenas. The "career" mode can by played in three differrent ways: Eliminator, Deathmatch and Endurance - essentially, last man standing and a couple of other versions. I picked up "Motor Mayhem" at a CompUSA store that was clearancing random games for $9.98 and $14.98. For $9.98 - a little less than the price of a couple of rentals - I wasn't too displeased with the purchase. However, after playing the game several times through, the replay value is already appearing thin. Combine that with the graphics and sound - which are both mixed - and this isn't a game that I'd recommend purchasing. Rating: 7/10 The DVD Graphics: "Motor Mayhem"'s graphics have their pros and cons. To get the bad news out of the way first: during the game's most intense moments, with all the explosions and cars racing acround, the game becomes noticably choppy - a couple of times during when I've played this game, it almost chugged to a halt for a second. On the other hand, the large vehicles are rendered with respectable detail and the graphics for the weapons firing are very nice - especially some of the missles tracking their targets. The weapons can also effect the backgrounds - some of the walls and other elements of the boards can be blown apart and some will even fall from the ceiling to the ground, taking out some of the other players if they're unlucky enough to be underneath. The graphics certainly aren't bad, but there are some concerns present. Rating: 7/10 Sound: "Motor Mayhem" has decent sound design. The weapon sound effects are nothing special, but they give a respectably convincing idea that the enemy has been hit. There's a fair amount of crowd noise in the background, but the crowd noise often just sounded like background noise and may have been better off left out. Rating: 6.9/10 Gameplay: Gameplay was not a problem at all with "Motor Mayhem". I picked up the controller and was easily able to figure out the controls. Some of the characters have vehicles that don't handle as easily as others - for example, the motorcycles had the easiest control of movement. I found it easy to cycle through available weapons and fire, as well. In terms of replay value, there are a fair amount of levels, all of which are fairly large (if not always designed particularly well). While I found some inital replay value, I'm already begining to get a bit bored of it. Rating: 8/10 Rating Issues: The game is rated "T", but there's really nothing graphic or disturbing about it. Some cars bumping into each other or enemy vehicles blowing up when hit by weapons are all that's really involved.  Final Thoughts: An okay game; there are similar games out there that are better. May make for a decent rental. |