Despite living an unexciting (and probably too sedentary) life, I’ve always been fascinated by extreme sports, especially in video game form. While I spent plenty of time with Tony Hawk and Dave Mirra as a youth, my only real exposure to mountain biking was the excellent Downhill Domination on PS2, and since then the sport has largely been relegated to an obscure corner of my mind. That is, until now, with MAVRIX by Matt Jones proving that this is a sport worthy of the genre.
There are three things I look for in an extreme sports game, the first of which being a strong environment. There are a ton of truly iconic locales from extreme sports games, although admittedly most are from one of the dozen or so Tony Hawks games. While the impressive 100km of countryside in MAVRIX isn’t going to sit alongside Airport from THPS3 or School from THPS2, it’s nonetheless an exciting and enjoyable world to explore.
My favourite thing about it is how realistic it feels. I spent some time living in North Wales, and while I was never anywhere quite as adventurous as the setting of MAVRIX, I do appreciate the little touches that Third Kind Games have put into the world. The first time I saw ARAF alongside SLOW on the road brought a little smile to my face, and Wales is a rare setting for a video game so hats off for them taking the game there. When I spoke to Matt in the preview session last year he told me that Wales is somewhat of an international hub for mountain biking, so I love that they’ve picked it to build the game around.
The world’s packed with places to explore, and it’s all connected by a series of level-gated chairlifts. It’s great because you’re free to explore however you want but there’s always a new chairlift to work towards unlocking which gives you a sense of purpose that could easily be lost in a game like this. There are downhill mountain trails, technical challenges that’ll test your ability to bunny hop and brake, and even an open-sided van driving around the world just begging for you to jump through. I’m the sort of extreme sports gamer that’ll largely ignore the challenges in the game once I’ve got access to the full map, preferring to find my own lines to carve across the mountain and MAVRIX indulges this, giving me the freedom to just switch off and enjoy tricking my way around the lovely looking Welsh countryside.
The second thing I need from an extreme sports game is good controls. I prefer games that lean towards realism, which MAVRIX pitches perfectly by ensuring the physics feel grounded but by also giving you plenty of control over your bike. It takes a bit of getting used to, especially when you’re learning how to squash jumps or using the back brake to take corners effectively, but at no point did I feel like I was fighting the controls, I just needed to learn the correct timing. Timing is key to a lot of MAVRIX, as you’ll be timing your flips and spins when you leave a ramp, or trying to time a whip perfectly so that you level out as you hit the ground again. Add in the fact you’re doing this at 80km/h and it’s really exhilarating, especially if you try it in first person.
My final requirement of an extreme sports game is the soundtrack. Going back to Tony Hawks, those games had some iconic soundtracks which I still listen to now. MAVRIX has a choice of 3 radio stations, and while the two Red Bull ones play some generic music, the third one has some genuine bangers on it, including Wolfmother, Phoenix, Hilltop Hoods, and Eagles of Death Metal. The hallmark of any good soundtrack is if one of the tracks makes its way into my Spotify library, and that’s a big tick for MAVRIX. I wish there was more of it, and maybe a few more channels with licensed music but it’s a minor gripe.
There’s probably something to say about the game’s multiplayer, which fills your session with dozens of other players. I quite liked seeing them tackling the same downhill trails as me, particularly when a few of us got stuck on the same spot and there was lots of respawning, as it made me feel better about my own struggles with the handlebars, but largely I thought of them as NPC’s. As I said before, I play these games to make my own fun and I’m quite content just bombing around by myself and tackling lines as I find them.
MAVRIX is a really fun entry in the extreme sports genre, and one I can see staying on my hard drive for a long while. It’s a great game to dip in and out of, whether that’s tackling downhill trails or just setting a session marker and seeing if I can finally get through that open-sided truck. For fans of the genre it’s a no brainer, and even if you’re just curious then there aren’t many better examples on current consoles.
