MAVRIX begins with a short tutorial which introduces you to all the controls, and from there it opens into a large, open-world mountain biking playground to explore at your leisure. Controlling your bike is simple and quite intuitive, though its use of both joysticks for bike control means that the camera is static and cannot be manipulated. This takes some getting used to as it goes against modern gaming conventions, but after several times of leaning your body one way or the other and wondering why the camera isn’t rotating with the right stick, your brain will reprogram itself.
While the left stick steers, the right stick shifts your body weight to allow you to lean into turns for more precise (and sharper) control. Combine these maneuvers with a pump of the rear brake and you can drift through some sick turns. You can also execute a variety of ground tricks, takeoff tricks, and air tricks by using different movements of both sticks, and sometimes in combination with the left shoulder button. Flipping in the air is done by pushing both sticks forwards or backwards, for instance. Or you can execute the more technical stuff by holding L1 and flicking the sticks.
So, for example, a Superman seat grab is L1 and down on the left stick while in the air. The one caveat with tricks is that most of them are simply animations initiated by your button inputs. They do feel more stilted when compared to something like Riders Republic.
On PS5, MAVRIX includes support for haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, which means you’ll be feeling the resistance of braking big time. There are also two graphical modes: Performance and Quality. But I don’t see any good reason to sacrifice the performance mode’s 60 frames per second on a game like this, although the quality mode does run at a rock solid 30 frames.
The world and environment look decent. Off the trails, though, textures are poor and there is a general reduction in fidelity. With that said, you can experience it all in either first or third-person perspective, which can be swapped on the fly with a button press.
Racing down a trail in first-person is a hell of a thrill, but I found it almost impossible to execute any tricks in first person. To be fair though, that is not a knock against MAVRIX – I don’t know how anyone could translate bicycle somersaults 50 feet in the air gracefully to a first-person camera perspective. Still, it’s a nice feature.
On PS5, MAVRIX includes support for haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, which means you’ll be feeling the resistance of braking big time. There are also two graphical modes: Performance and Quality. But I don’t see any good reason to sacrifice the performance mode’s 60 frames per second on a game like this, although the quality mode does run at a rock solid 30 frames.
The world and environment look decent. Off the trails, though, textures are poor and there is a general reduction in fidelity. With that said, you can experience it all in either first or third-person perspective, which can be swapped on the fly with a button press.
Racing down a trail in first-person is a hell of a thrill, but I found it almost impossible to execute any tricks in first person. To be fair though, that is not a knock against MAVRIX – I don’t know how anyone could translate bicycle somersaults 50 feet in the air gracefully to a first-person camera perspective. Still, it’s a nice feature.
Despite leaning more into being a mountain bike simulation than arcade racer, MAVRIX is still easy to recommend for players of all skill levels. You seek the challenge that you’re looking for, and I’m still trying to get good at a trail called Ridget Jones (great name). Of course, you don’t really know how difficult a trail or course is until you try it, but that’s part of the fun. At the very least, you’ll hilariously fly off the side of a cliff after smacking into an obstacle that you weren’t quick enough to navigate. Wiping out will respawn you at the nearest checkpoint, or the nearest session marker if you’ve placed one.
Session markers are spawn points that are both helpful and frustrating depending on the situation. At times they saved me the hassle of having to ride back to the start of a trail, but the trouble is that if you don’t remember to clear out the marker, you will respawn there every time, even if you’re halfway across the map. Oops.
What’s strange is that MAVRIX does not have Trophies on PlayStation 5 – a rare oddity for a game on PlayStation, typically reserved for Early Access titles. To wit, there’s a message always plastered on the screen that reads: “Early Access – Not Final.” Despite that, we at Gaming Nexus were not pitched the game as an Early Access title on consoles, so I’m giving it the full review treatment, just to be clear. All of which is to say that maybe some features don’t feel fully fleshed out because they’re not actually complete.
Nevertheless, I have enjoyed my time with MAVRIX and see more potential in it as the developers continue to improve and add to it. It can be a white-knuckle mountain biking experience, or a laid-back game you can chill out with. I would be remiss not to mention MAVRIX’s great licensed soundtrack that nails the vibe of the game, whether you’re flying down trails, sending it for massive jumps, or just cruising around the map. I do think the asking price of $39.99 is a little steep considering what is included at launch, but I’d easily recommend picking it up on sale, particularly if you enjoy more niche sports games.
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