Monster Jam Steel Titans 2

My first instinct with Monster Jam Steel Titans 2 was to hand a controller to the least racing-literate person in the room, and that instinct was correct. This is not a sim. The physics are deliberately floaty, the trucks catch big air off small bumps, and the dual-stick control scheme - left stick steers the front wheels, right stick steers the rear - sounds weird until you realise it lets you spin donuts in about three seconds flat. That is, at its core, what this game is actually selling: goofy, low-stakes monster truck chaos. The structure underneath that chaos is surprisingly meaty on paper. There is a World Career spread across multiple chapters, a separate Big Show mode that runs you through an Arena Championship, World Finals XIX, and World Finals XX events, and then harder-plus versions of both for when you want an extra fight. Trucks gain XP as you use them, nudging handling and performance upward, and each truck class comes with a class-specific ability - speed bursts, shoving nearby rivals backward, that kind of thing. Collectible hunting in the five open-world zones keeps you busy between events, and a post-launch Playground Mode unlocks everything outright for anyone who just wants to mess around without grinding. That last addition is a genuinely good call for younger players or casual sessions. Online supports up to six players in free roam and outdoor races, and 1v1 stadium events cover Head-to-Head races, Timed Destruction, Two Wheel Skills, and Freestyle. Split-screen local co-op is in too, and from a couch-play perspective it holds up reasonably well, with only occasional bugs reported in that mode. Here is where it gets honest. The 78 percent Steam rating tells a story that the highlight reel does not. Tracks are repetitive, the music loops so aggressively that you will hear the same song so many times per chapter it starts to feel like a sleep deprivation test, and the open worlds - while larger than the first Steel Titans - feel thin once the novelty wears off. Every truck handling identically is a real issue: Grave Digger and a generic training truck feel more or less the same under your thumbs, and that sameness flattens what should be the roster's main selling point. Online lobbies were quiet at launch and have not gotten louder; finding a public match is a roll of the dice. The game also sits in an awkward middle ground between arcade racer and something more deliberate, and it does not fully commit to either direction. For wheel and pedal setups: skip it. There is no meaningful sim layer here to justify that hardware, and the game is built for a standard gamepad. On controller it is comfortable, responsive enough, and the dual-stick steering clicks within a few minutes of practice. Performance on PC is stable with a locked framerate and fewer pop-in issues than the first Steel Titans, which is a real improvement even if the visuals themselves are not exactly pushing anything hard. The honest pitch is this: if you have two to four people in a room, a pile of snacks, and zero interest in a serious racing game, Steel Titans 2 will earn its keep for an evening. The Freestyle events - stacking flips, stoppies, moonwalks, and cyclones for combo points - are the most fun the game offers, and they work brilliantly as a short-burst party mode. Solo and long-term? The repetition bites hard around the midpoint of career, and the online population will not save you. Know what you are buying.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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