	Monster Trucks DS
	Developer: Majesco Publisher: THQ Release Date: Out Now Players: 1 (4 via link)	Words By:
It's been a long time since I've stared at marvellous machines such as Bigfoot, Grave Digger and Snake Bite. Monster Trucks are unquestionably un-PC - 9 litre engines that produce between 1000-1500 bhp and guzzle 2-3 (US) gallons of high grade methanol fuel in about 250 feet (translated to metric that's 7.5-11 litres in 75 metres) – but you can see why kids and many grown men (including me) love them - they're big and stupid, a bit like me. Monster Trucks DS avoids the car-crushing side of 'monster trucking' and sticks entirely to monster truck racing. You pick a truck, you pick a track and then you race – on your own, or against others via wireless link. You can also have a monster truck career, where by winning or being runner up in a race you get to progress on to the next race and get some cash to upgrade basic parts to your truck. But unlike the 'Grave Digger' truck I loved as a kid, playing Monster Trucks DS fails to excite me at all. One problem is a complete disregard for realism. Now I know I shouldn't probably use the word 'realism' in a review of a monster truck racing game, but there's a pretty fundamental issue here. These machines have astounding levels of power – continental drift-defying levels of torque – so why the hell can my truck get stuck on a shrub? Around some of the courses there are some small bushes and other objects, all of which seem to have an invisible wall around them that will stop the truck instantly if it even clips one. Maybe the game is right, and next time I get chased by a guy in a monster truck I'll hide behind the neighbour's privet hedge. The bigger problem with the game though is just that it's not a lot of fun. You race around some very dull tracks against three other trucks, and that's it. In the career you can slightly speed up your truck or (supposedly, but I didn't notice any difference) improve the handling, but that's it in between races – you just move onto the next race until you've done all twenty-five of them, at which point you get a congratulations message, and then start over again. When the racing isn't boring it's frustrating - the only way to overtake is to ram the other trucks as most of the tracks aren't wide enough to accommodate overtaking, although after a couple of upgrades the other trucks will be left so far behind you won't have to bother yourself with overtaking. It all meant that after an hour and a half I'd done the career cycle once and decided not to bother with it again. This could all be just because Monster Trucks DS is meant to be simple and easy – something for kids to play. It certainly looks ok (ish), and there's a nice couple of tunes playing when you race, but the fact is that kids are just as likely to get frustrated with the fiddly steering of the trucks, not to mention the way that the camera takes an age to move behind the truck to see where you're going when you change direction. I think you've got the point by now, but just in case, I'll put myself out of the agony of reviewing this and sum up - while monster trucking is a good idea for a game, Monster Trucks DS is singularly unexciting and I would hope for more fun from a mobile phone game, let alone the little bundle of joy that is my DS Lite.

Best Bits
- It's a monster truck racing game

Worst Bits
- It's a very dull monster truck racing game


by: Jocky