Dead or Alive?
MX vs. ATV Alive is the sequel to 2009’s MX vs. ATV Reflex. While it’s good to have a new racer on the market, can it surpass the competition?
Well it’s actually a bit disappointing compared to other racers as its very light on actual content. You gain XP for races and level up to get new features for your character, but it also holds back the number of courses you can do…so you have to grind XP to access them all. This wouldn’t be so bad if you were initially given 10-15 tracks to get your teeth into, but they only dish out a few for you to begin with. At the end, you’ll be so bored of replaying the same track that you won’t have much enthusiasm to carry on with the rest of the tracks.
The game has a lower retail price than you would expect, but that’s because of the lack of content on the disc. Instead they want you to download tracks and vehicles from the marketplace to make up the shortfall, which feels rather sneaky and a little underhanded.
That’s the bad news. The good news however is that it handles remarkably well as each analogue stick moves you and the vehicle independently. The tracks are well thought out and it can be tough to master, while the difficulty curve is pretty high.
Visually, MX vs. ATV Alive is a mixed bag. It looks good, but doesn’t seem much of an improvement over Reflex and there are some irregularities with vehicle models vanishing and the animation isn’t that great either. The in-game music is nice, but forgettable.
The Verdict
MX vs. ATV Alive is a decent follow-up to Reflex, but the lack of content on the disc is surprising and making you grind to unlock more tracks is really dumb and repetitive, but on the plus side it can be great fun on and offline. If you can put up with having to pay for more content later on, then MX vs. ATV Alive might be worth a look.
