MUD: FIM Motocross World Championship Review

You can see the logic. Using a single syllable synonym for 'muck' worked well for Codemasters when it rejuvenated the Colin McRae series. Which is, we guess, why Black Bean has decided to attempt a similar thing - going from faintly mundane sims to something with a little more fizz.

But sadly for MUD, all the snazzy menus, cartoon heroes and off-the-peg punk music can't hide the fact that the racing itself in this off-road two-wheeler just isn't all that exciting.

The 'scrub' mechanic does well to add a pleasant rhythm to the jumps, but in spite of some pretty track deformation there's really little sense that your bike is doing anything other than just gliding across a smooth surface. Rubber banding keeps the AI snapping at your heels, but actually trying to tangle with any of the other racers reveals that they're completely lacking in any kind of personality.

The career mode is a repetitive series of unlocked events and the addition of an extremely rudimentary Trick Battle mode doesn't do much to break the tedium. At the very most, this is no more than an afternoon's entertainment.