Monster Jam: Maximum Destruction is a vehicle combat game for the PC, Nintendo GameCube, GameBoy Advanced, and Playstation 2 by Ubisoft in which the player is given the option to play as 26 of the most famous monster trucks. It is the only Monster Jam game to receive a teen rating by the ESRB due to violence in the game. The game was released in 2002, although many 2001 trucks appeared in the game due to when it was being developed.
In the battles, the player must bring down the other truck's energy bars to destroy them. Weapons are also used, which are found in the arena (similar to those in Mario Kart and Twisted Metal battles). There are also minigames, like racing and freestyle.
Due to the game coming out in 2002, certain sponsorships, such as with Wrenchead.com and WCW, ended before the game's release. Because of this, certain changes had to be made, such as Goldberg and Sting having the actual faces of the characters removed from the trucks. In the case of both Nitro Machine and Wrenchead.com, however, both trucks were removed entirely from the game. The original models were found online many years later, however, and were placed into the game Monster Trux Extreme, albeit without permission.
Beta images of the game.
Unlockable trucks[]
These trucks could be unlocked if the player completed a season by only playing as a champion truck on any difficulty.
The Incredible Hulk is the only unlockable truck from both versions. Blue Thunder was made into an unlockable truck instead of being unlocked from the start. All other bonus trucks from the PS2 version were replaced with two fictional trucks, Slam Tilt and Emperoar.
Trivia[]
Blue Thunder's champion version called "Steel Thunder".
The champion version of Blue Thunder is called "Steel Thunder" in the PC release of the game. Strangely, this does explain why Blue Thunder is placed in the "S" group of the truck selection screen in all releases of the game, despite its name starting with a "B".
The game was re-released in 2004 for the PC but lacked the inclusions of Goldberg, Sting, Wolverine and Spider-Man as the sponsorships that allowed those trucks to be run had expired by 2004. As such, the game's intro was altered to remove all game and FMV footage of those trucks included in the intro. These were instead replaced with clips from the intro of the Monster 4X4: Masters of Metal game. For example, Bulldozer's intro footage from the aforementioned game was used in place of Wolverine's live action clip and Goldberg's game footage clip, which appeared directly after each other in the original intro.
Reception[]
Monster Jam: Maximum Destruction received mixed to negative reviews by critics.
