Review NaN of 1
, from TX
Price Paid:
$5.00
from Hastings (rental) Summary:
BMX XXX
Since Acclaim turned out the Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX series, the Jeremy McGraph Supercross series, and the innovative Aggressive Inline, you’d think they’d just about perfected the extreme sports genre. What? And it has topless dancers? This game’s gonna rule! Well, Acclaim has absolutely no experience in the stripping genre, but the parts of the game (clips) that include topless women are MUCH better than the actual gameplay, and I’m not saying that because I’m a teenaged guy, either. In the clips (earned by completing different challenges and such), real women are filmed and shown to you. The rest of the game fails horribly while trying to live up to this real-life standard; in the game, I mistook Homeless Jones (who’s on a quest for cans) for a refrigerator. This is the beginning of BMX XXX’s problems.
Everything in the game (save the stripper clips) is horribly blocky and character animations are sloth-like and stiff. Cut scenes look no better. Even though voices have their intended feel (humorous), most of the humor is erased when you see that fingers don’t gesticulate and lips no longer flap with words. Just for the sake of experimentation, I hooked my N-64 up and popped in Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (first in the Turok series, and also made by Acclaim). I compared Turok and BMX XXX’s graphics. Unsurprisingly, Turok was much shaper and character animations were more fluid than BMX XXX.
Other problems arose while playing BMX. For one, objects were bigger than they let on (I’m feeling rather inexplicit right now, but bear with me as I bumble through explaining my point). Here’s an example, since I can’t properly explain what I’m trying to say: As I was riding my bike (which was entitled Lil’ Ho), I ran into a pole. No big deal, right? I then steered about two feet right from the pole and tried to proceed down the street for the second time. I hit the pole again. I had to steer well clear of the seemingly slender pole just to get down the street. This sort of thing happened quite frequently as I played through the levels. The polygons that made up everything in the levels were jagged and seemingly hastily constructed, making gameplay sloppy.
Not to say that levels aren’t fun to play. Indeed they are, even if polygonal glitches make them frustrating to play at times. In a very Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater-esque fashion, seemingly small levels are indeed huge if you take the time to explore each one properly. All (except challenge levels, which I’ll discuss later) levels in BMX XXX contain the following: forty-five coins to collect that span the level, five bike parts to improve your bike with, and up to twenty challenges to complete. This should keep any gamer entertained for hours to come.
But alas, it doesn’t. The game stands very heavily on its missions’ (challenges) shoulders, and the missions shudder and fall from the weight. Many missions start with cut scenes (which are usually very humorous) that will tell you what you will be doing in the mission. The problem is this: even though directions that appear after the cut scenes give you an idea of how to complete each mission, almost all fail to explain in enough detail for you to be able to complete the mission. In one case, a biker stood on a concrete block, and told you to transfer over him from one ramp to another. Not only did the directions not tell you what ‘transfer’ meant, but there were also no premises for doing this; why would the rider care if you transferred over his head? We don’t know. In another part of BMX XXX, a biker in a skate park tells you to ghost ride your bike into the ‘fruit booter.’ The directions tell you how to ghost ride your bike, but they fail to tell you what a fruit booter is (an in-line skater)! This is just bad setup on Acclaim’s part.
Another problem I had with BMX XXX was its trick system. I would bust some awesome move by combining some random moves together and I miss my landing. My friend would go off the vert ramp and do the same thing, but he didn’t have to worry about landing it, because he would hold the ‘Y’ button as he came down and he would land delicately on one peg atop the ramp. Almost any trick can be completed by doing this, and grinds and stalls are far too easy to do. These extreme sports games aren’t know for their realism, I know, but why in the world should you be able to ride fifty feet into the air and easily land perched precariously on a thin ledge? And if so, shouldn’t doing this be harder than grinding on a pole two feet off the ground? Also, the grinds and stalls provide you with many more points than they should. Unlike the other tricks, which are immeasurably harder to carry out than grinds and stalls, G&S don’t get points subtracted from you for performing them often. A tabletop may achieve one thousand points the first time it’s done, but 750 the second time. G&S get you full credit every time they’re performed. The trick section is also relied on heavily throughout the game, and it also fails to hold the hefty game above the crowd.
One of my favorite components of BMX XXX is its soundtrack, which is truly great, and licensed, by the way. That right; no generic music here! All the songs in BMX XXX are recorded by professional musicians, such as: 311, Green Day, Sublime, and even a little bit of old school rap! Yes, ladies and gents, N.E.R.D. is making an appearance in this ‘metal’ dominated soundtrack. I do wish, however, that since the game isn’t really worth playing, they could have included an option that would allow me to play the soundtrack independently from the game. Oh well; beggars can’t be choosers.
In-game banter is also never kept to a minimum in BMX XXX. Whores whimper, pimps shout profanity and threats (as well as every other character), and construction workers mumble drunkenly about port-a-potties and such. In my opinion, this is where the game truly shines and shows its personality. I laughed readily and with gusto during every cut scene or mission briefing. Many view the language used in BMX XXX as ‘adolescent’ or ‘locker room’ humor. However, I am an adolescent and I spend time in locker rooms, so I can see why I would appreciate its humor. Older people, in the twenty to twenty-two range might not might this as amusing as I, though.
BMX XXX was indeed intended for a mature audience, but since its gameplay has such colossal faults (such as blocky levels, a stupid trick system, and sixty-four bit graphics), it really offers nothing to the maturated gamer.
-Chris C.
74%
Cost - $50
Players – 1
Graphics – 5
Sounds – 9
Gameplay – 7
Lifespan – 6
Overall – 74%
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