Jump in. Forget the manual.  Just drive.   Smash everything in sight!  That’s the point!

Sadly, smashing everything in sight is the ONLY point in Monster Jam.

We had the opportunity to play Activision’s Monster Truck simulator on two platforms and compare features and game play side-by-side.  We smashed us some cars on both the Nintendo Wii and the Xbox 360 consoles.  Visually and thematically, the game is almost identical on the consoles we used for this review, varying only in graphical detail, with better modeling and lighting on the Xbox 360.  The smashed-up objects were very 2-dimensional on both consoles, appearing as if we’d smashed through a house of cards instead of a barn.

Game play is simple: Drive a big, loud, heavy, over-customized vehicle over, around and through stuff.  Problem is, DRIVING is especially difficult in this game!  We first tried Monster Jam on the Wii, looking for game features that take advantage of the Wii’s unique motion-sensing controller.  Monster Jam does use the motion sense, but only for steering.  Hold the controller horizontally and tilt it left to turn left, right to turn right.  While on paper this may seem like a unique way to control a vehicle in a video game, it is a very imprecise one, making control of your monster (truck) frustratingly difficult.

To our surprise, controlling the truck on the 360 was no better – but the reason was clearer, thanks to better graphics.  The truck only has 5 wheel positions, much like a cheap radio-controlled car you might buy at a swap-meet for $20.  So despite an analog joystick on the 360’s gamepad, you only had hard-left, medium-left, straight, medium-right and hard-right to choose from.  A monster truck is unstable to begin with, so why Activision limited the control capability is a mystery, and this limitation really hampered our raw enjoyment of smashing stuff up without tumbling down a ravine – over and over and over.

The instruction booklet is 5 pages in length.  Look up the controls and the screen description on page 2 and set it aside.  You won’t need it any more.  What you will need is a fair amount of time to play the game to unlock most of its features.  There is no ‘adventure’ or scripted story mode to ‘Jam, just tracks and trucks to be unlocked.

The game touts 20 monster trucks, 9 stadium venues and 12 outdoor circuit tracks, but only a handful are available to use out of the box.  The rest need to be unlocked by accumulating points for winning races with style and airtime as you drive over cars, portable buildings, through a boat or two, etc.  With the control limitations of the vehicle, it is very hard to stay interested long enough to unlock everything there is to unlock.  If there was a point to having these things locked, such as a plot that unfolded as game play proceeded, or some sort of career mode to manage, I’d be okay with all the little padlocks, and my interest would be drawn along.  But in ‘Jam, the locks seem arbitrary.  There is no ability to customize vehicles either – a feature that Activision should consider adding.

Once you’ve circled the track a few times, taken in the scenery on the outdoor circuit – which is very nicely rendered by the way – and smashed some stuff to bits, you’ve had all the fun you’re gonna have with this title.  If you’re a hard-core monster truck fan, though, this game might have enough to keep you interested.  For example, you can drive your favorite monster trucks like Grave Digger and Blue Thunder.  You can visit familiar venues, and the first-person camera views can really take you for a ride as you flip end over end and fly through the air (WARNING: this camera angle is especially risky on a 42” plasma TV and a wife who is prone to motion sickness).

The ‘E’ rating is appropriate.  The music and sound effects may be objectionable to some (there are separate volume controls in the game options to fix that), but this game is well suited to keeping boys aged 5-9 (or boys 30-up that like to smash stuff) entertained without risk of unlocking something inappropriate or inflicting serious injury.  Our young lady test subject, age 10, was not interested in ‘Jam in the least, so maybe this one really is a ‘guy thing’.  And as mentioned in the warning, wives will likely take a pass.

My advice: Rent it first.  If it holds your attention longer than 30 minutes, buy a copy. Street price for Monster Jam is about $29 bucks.  Besides the Wii and Xbox 360 versions we tested, there are versions available for PS2, Nintendo DS and personal computers running Windows.