Monster Truck Madness is a racing video game developed by Terminal Reality and published by Microsoft for Windows 95. During development, it was referred to as Heavy Metal Truck or by the internal codename, Metal Crush.
Development
Development of Monster Truck Madness started in 1995 originally as a DOS monster truck racing simulator named Metal Crush. After getting funds from Microsoft and licensing to use real life trucks, Microsoft decided the game must be run in a Windows 32-bits environment, like other TRI games published by Microsoft (that were ported to the Win32 API, like Fury3, a Win32 game based on the DOS Terminal Velocity's engine). The game was ported to Windows and it was renamed to Heavy Metal Truck for a short period of time. Heavy Metal Truck had a very primitive user interface, only two tracks (Indiana State Fairgrounds and Arizona), 5 basic trucks and it included a truck editor and a free roam mode, features that later were excluded from the final product. During the development of Heavy Metal Truck, a more user friendly graphical user interface was added, the stock trucks were removed and replaced from real life licensed trucks, and the name of the game was renamed to Monster Truck Madness.
Gameplay
A racing game, Monster Truck Madness allows players to select between the 12 real life monster trucks and compete with AI players in one of four modes - drag (based on PENDA Point Series), circuit, rally and tournament. It is also possible for human players to race against one another via DirectPlay.
List of trucks
- Bear Foot
- Bigfoot
- Boogey Van
- Carolina Crusher
- Grave Digger
- Monster Patrol
- Overkill
- Patriot (beta only)
- Power Wheels Bigfoot
- Rampage
- Samson
- Snake Bite
- Wildfoot
Tracks
Drag:
- BC Place (Vancouver, BC)
- Indiana State Fairgrounds (Indianapolis, IN)
- RCA Dome (Indianapolis, IN)
- Tacoma Dome (Tacoma, WA)
- Trans World Dome (St Louis, MO)
Circuit:
- A Crazy Eight
- Canyon Adventure
- Mud Pies
- Round And Round
- Winding Way
Rally:
- Arizona
- Highlands Rally
- Yucatan Adventure
Sequels
Main article: Monster Truck Madness 2
A sequel to the original and released in 1998, Monster Truck Madness 2 (abbreviated as MTM2, codenamed Metal Crush 2) offers improved graphics, an updated interface, new trucks and tracks and the addition of variable weather conditions. However, the game engine is essentially the same as that utilized in the original game. A testament to their similarity is the fact that most custom trucks and tracks are compatible with both games. In 2003, a new game called Monster Truck Madness was released for the Game Boy Advance. It was developed by Tantalus Media and published by THQ.