Monster Jam Showdown

Monster Jam Showdown was provided by PLAION. for review. Thank you!

There's quite a stigma attached to Monster Truck games these days. After having what seems like a deluge of low-quality titles on the PS2 and Wii systems, I certainly had a negative view of any game that was focused on Monster Trucks. Fortunately, Monster Jam Showdown is a game trying to buck the trend, and it was a surprisingly good time.

Monster Jam Showdown feels like a love letter to Monster Trucks in general. The driving model feels fun and great, with a bouncy suspension keeping the trucks bouncing after hard landings and drifting around the corners. The game's driving can be complex or simple, depending on how you have your assists set up, with the game asking you to steer both the front and rear wheels with the left and right thumbstick, respectively, although you can ask the game to handle the rear wheels for you if you wish.

The driving is the highlight of Monster Jam Showdown, with a boost system that rewards you for destruction and drifts during races and a fun control scheme that grants you some air control and fine control over the Monster Truck's steering. It all combines to make a good physics-driven racer that rewards skilled driving.

If you are a Monster Truck fan, you'll see famous trucks featured, such as Max-D, Grave Digger, and Higher Education.

The events take place across three environments, namely Colorado, Alaska, and California's Death Valley, with these representing woodland, snow/ice, and desert, respectively. There's a decent variety of tracks, although, during the "Showdown" career mode, you will notice repeats after a few races. These events are spread over a few types: general circuit racing, figure-8 racing with an increased risk of collisions, and stunt events where you must pull off stunts such as back/front flips, drifts, destruction, and more to build up a good combo. There are also a few other event types you can encounter.

The AI is reasonably competent in the hardest difficulty setting. If you are an experienced racing game driver and want a challenge, you should select Hard from the get-go. I played on Medium and generally won most races by 10-20 seconds. Hard should provide a decent challenge for most players, though.

The game mainly has two modes: the Showdown mode, essentially a Career mode, and multiplayer mode. The Showdown mode has over 100 events and should keep you busy for 10 hours or more if you want to 100% it. You'll play pretty much everything the game offers as you go through Showdown mode.

In multiplayer, you have the choice of playing Online or in Split-Screen. I didn't test the split-screen as I was playing on my Steam Deck, but I did get the chance to hop into a couple of online events, and the network code seems solid, with four racers in both events. I didn't notice any lag or unnatural movement of other vehicles. You can also create a party of up to 8 players to do a private event using your settings, allowing you to choose the mode and track yourself.

Visually, I was pleasantly surprised with Monster Jam Showdown. The environments look nice, the vehicles have reflections and good shading on them with the right settings, and the particle effects for dust and water also play their part in bringing together an overall nice picture. You can also cosmetically damage your Monster Truck, with parts bending and flying off of your vehicle, which is a nice touch, even if there is no mechanical penalty.

Sounds are a mixed bag. I enjoyed the music in the game, which has an almost hip-hop flavor, and the vehicle engines are also decent, although not the best I've heard. One thing that did annoy me and resulted in me disabling it was the commentator's voice. Generally, you can't hear the commentator, but in stadium environments during stunt events, they comment during the event, which I found to be pretty annoying. Fortunately, the game allows you to disable commentary without affecting the rest of the game's sound.

Is Monster Jam Showdown a top racing game, then? I'm not sure I would go that far. It's limited in its scope, focusing solely on Monster Trucks, and it does quite well. There is a good selection of tracks and a few game modes, and while it's entertaining to play, I'm not sure the $50 price tag (at the time of this review) is necessarily warranted.

The online mode might add some longevity once you finish the Showdown mode, but player numbers on Steam for the first few hours after launch are quite low, and the multiplayer matches I played only filled up to half the lobby. The game does have cross-platform support, which should help it in the long run, but I would purchase this for its single-player first and foremost.

Monster Jam Showdown - Steam Deck Performance

Monster Jam Showdown is mostly a good experience on the Steam Deck. You get 1280x800 resolution support, and the controller support works well for the most part. However, I did encounter a glitch in the menus that prevented me from selecting some options, necessitating the use of the touchscreen. Also, on the first boot, you must link your Epic Games account, which requires the touchscreen to just hit 1 button if your Steam and Epic accounts are already linked.

There is currently an issue with in-game videos where they appear black. Fortunately, the game doesn't feature many in-game videos. The only time I encountered them was during the intro and the tutorial. If the game appears to be hung on a black screen upon booting, just hit A, as it's likely playing the intro video that isn't being rendered properly.

Recommended Settings - 30 FPS

Regarding SteamOS settings, we'll be applying a frame rate limit of 30 FPS; no TDP Limit for this one.

We're mostly using "Low" settings here, which means we get the basic features of each visual effect, such as some reflections, ambient occlusion, and lens flare/bloom. Texture Detail stays on "High" and Shadows on "Medium." I recommend you keep the Frame Rate Limit option in-game to 120, as the in-game frame limiter is poor, and your framerate can go above and below 30 if you use it.

With these settings, you should get a 99.9% stable 30 FPS throughout the game, I tried these settings on every environment and on multiple tracks, and never really saw any frame drops, so it's a very "smooth" experience, as smooth as 30 FPS can be at least.

The power draw changes depending on the track you're on. Wooded tracks are the highest battery killers, so expect around 16-21W of power draw. Steam Deck LCD owners can expect around 2 hours of battery life, with Steam Deck OLED owners getting around 2.5 hours.

Temperatures hovered between 70-80C, with the fan noise going up and down during play.

Framerate Settings - 40 FPS

If you don't fancy playing a racing game at 30 FPS, I can offer you a preset that allows 40 FPS. You can set a 40 FPS / 40 Hz limit in SteamOS; no TDP Limit again here.

All the settings have to be at their lowest option, except Texture Detail, which we can keep on "High." Again, make sure the in-game frame limiter isn't set to 30 FPS, as it does a poor job of stabilizing the framerate.

Like the 30 FPS preset, I found these settings to deliver an almost entirely stable 40 FPS experience. You lose out on visual niceties, such as reflections and effects, but you gain some FPS, which might be more important to you.

The power draw is a bit higher on this preset, partially because the CPU must work harder to hold 40 FPS. You can expect to see a power draw between 16 and 24W, depending on your track. Therefore, you might struggle to hit even 2 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck LCD, although the OLED should manage 2 hours.

Temperatures were also higher, hanging around 75-85C. The fan was almost always running fast.

Accessibility:

Monster Jam Showdown's accessibility mostly falls under the realm of driving aids. This includes braking and steering assist and the ability to slow down offline races if the game is a bit too fast-paced for you.

Conclusion:

If Monster Jam Showdown's goal was to become the best Monster Truck game available right now, to my knowledge, that goal has been accomplished. While its focus on the Monster Truck genre may make it a niche product, it should satisfy anyone looking for a game that fills that niche. With satisfying driving physics, different event types, and a good-looking game, Monster Jam Showdown is a competent racer.

The Showdown Tour mode offers a good chunk of gameplay there. Hopefully, the online mode, coupled with cross-platform multiplayer, will stay active for a decent amount of time to allow players that extra piece of replayability.

Regarding Steam Deck compatibility and performance, there are a couple of issues, mainly the need to use a touchscreen at rare points and issues with in-game videos. However, in terms of performance and stability, the game does run quite well on the Steam Deck, and I can give Monster Jam Showdown a thumbs up as a perfectly playable Steam Deck title.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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