Monster Jam Showdown feels a bit like what would happen if Forza Horizon had a baby with my childhood, and that’s cool

What makes a good arcade racing game in 2024? Aiming to be a bit like what the Forza Horizon series has morphed into, aside from the whole open-world thing? Yeah, alright.

This, I’d assume, may well have been the conversation that took place when Milestone began putting together its plans for Monster Jam Showdown. Showdown is the latest game to offer people like me – people who get a kick out of supremely silly vehicles shaped like giant bulls, hearses, or sharks which remind us of a time when the world seemed distinctly more wondrous and less terrifying – the chance to nail a backflip over a wrecked car and be far too embarrassed to tell our friends how much we loved it.

It does a pretty good job of that, ostensibly by focusing more on just being a good racing game, rather than specifically being a good Monster Jam game. Sure, you’re doing a lot of the usual Monster Jam activities. There are some arenas where you can freestyle, some short races around tight obstacle courses, and all the licensed monster trucks six-year-old you could ever want. However, this time around, it’s all tied into a worldspace that feels very much like it could belong to pretty much any offroad racing game.