As a reviewer, I'm really supposed to remain objective. But, I'll make a confession. After reviewing what I found to be a pretty pointless and mildly fun game on GBA, I was a little apprehensive to see the same game popping up for PS2. Luckily, Monster Jam for PS2 is very much a horse of a different color, compared to its little brother on GBA. Which isn't to say you won't have some complaints.

But, graphics probably won't be one of the things you complain about. The visuals here are sweet. Trucks have a nice, shiny metallic texture to them, and all the objects in the game carry a high level of detail. Almost every piece of your environment is destructible, and the weapon pick-ups provide no end of graphical splendor. The coolest thing to see is how your truck takes damage during the free-for-all matches and drops pieces gradually until it looks like not much more than a drive-train and a set of wheels. Oh, and a driver of course. The announcer is TV perfect, and the music is all the rowdy Rock you could possibly handle. The sound effects during the game are nice, and items are well marked for easy identification during a frenzied battle. The slowdown is barely perceptible, so it's fair to say there was some nice programming done for this one, because the action on screen can be absolutely insane!

Where the GBA couldn't present much more than the top-down view of battling trucks and could only give a glimmer of the excitement we all feel watching the spectacle of a giant truck pummeling everything in its path to bolts and bits, Monster Jam Maximum Destruction for PS2 makes things ever so much more realistic. The different modes available are Exhibition, Season and Mini-Game. Mini-Game Mode is just a series of challenges, but each can be performed at multiple levels of difficulty and with different trucks. Over 20 trucks are available, and most from the beginning, so you won't have to wait long to take your favorite licensed truck into the fray. Spider-Man, Wolverine, Goldberg, Grave Digger...they're all here. Season is just an extension of Exhibition, except that it is the only single-player mode. Either of these two let you pick a truck and enter one or many arenas to battle for supremacy against a crowd of other trucks. It's sad that no 3- or 4-Player mode is available, and the lack is somewhat puzzling since many more than 4 trucks may be in the arena with you during Season or Exhibition mode. Strange. But, even with just one pal, you'll have a blast tearing up your truck and the others. Along the way during the battling competitions, you'll be able to win points and earn repairs to your truck by destroying objects in the level and the biggest return on investment comes from destroying other trucks. Unfortunately, the trucks don't take it as easily as most other stuff in the game. You'll find some fierce competitors, although the AI can change wildly depending on how you choose to play. At the end of each round in Season, you'll be awarded points based on how you performed during the game and will have a chance to purchase special upgrades to your truck. These will greatly affect performance during your next round. And, it helps to learn how to collect points, since much of the action in Mini-Game Mode is drawn from collecting points/money to win each round. Sometimes, Mini-Game is just about racing, which is plenty fun, also. The really big thing in this game is to gather enough points to go into Monster Jam mode. When you've dealt enough damage, you'll suddenly become almost invincible and be able to go around pushing yourself on everyone with impunity. Nice.

I like the way that AI responds to the different levels of challenge you select for any one of the 3 modes. You can actually take the Mini-Game or Exhibition Mode sections and adjust difficulty per stage, which is a nice way to allow custom adjustments. But, when it comes down to it, nobody cares much about the AI in a game like this, because they probably will only have purchased it to play with friends. In this case, 'friend' is singular. Sorry, but just 2 players on this one, people. On the easiest difficulty setting, enemies won't get power-ups and will only come at you when you're in the same general area. At higher difficulty settings, enemies are relentless, but still not 'smart' enough to make this a compelling long-term title for someone who wants to spend much time playing alone. As a single-player experience, Monster Jam could be an ideal rental, but may not wear well for the long haul.

The control for Monster Jam is far from perfect, but forgivable in relation to what your expectations might be for piloting giant trucks. I mean, these things can hardly be very nimble, can they? So, I actually feel like this might be a fairly accurate 'big truck' simulator. Many times, there are slippery sections of track that don't seem to respond adequately to any amount of skilled technique, and I also noticed that the edge detection for power-ups and items is a little dodgy. Expecting to drive around something and smashing into it is okay once, but when objects consistently seem to jump out in front of you, methinks there's a bit of a problem. This happens with trucks as well, making navigating around them difficult. But, the only real issue I had was with some areas where I was stuck behind a truck and would lose 'health' very quickly for no apparent reason. Cheap way to die. The health meter shows the physical state of your truck, and you can see the other guy's health as you hit him or fire on him with a weapon. Certain places on the truck can be hit to cause greater damage, and you'll also get feedback from the announcer when you or another truck is flagging. You can also find health power-ups or gain a little health by just being totally destructive. If only that worked in real life!

I was very much more pleased with the outcome of Monster Jam on PS2 than the previously seen GBA version. It will be interesting to see if this shows up on Gamecube or Xbox with the ability to include 4-Player Multiplayer. Lack of this for PS2 is a real weak spot for the game, since it really lives and dies by the quality of its multiplayer. Quality is fine, but what happened to quantity? I thought 4-Player modes were just about standard for games like this these days. That aside, there is some great rental action and a very solid game for big truck fans out there.