Is PeeWee's bike really the best when you see people doing stuff like this? |
The people who do stick around will have plenty of fun with the game. To fully unlock everything in the game, you have to play through twelve stages (three levels of tasks for each stage, or for the bike competitions, three different medals) with each real life biker (ten in all plus secret characters). What will you be unlocking you ask? Everything from new bikes to new sponsorships and outfits. Playing through the first difficulty level will be a breeze, but they do get quite challenging as you move on. One of the nice things about Dave Mirra is how the game actually highlights the area of the course where the trick must be performed and what must be done while playing the game. I remember wasting hours trying to 50/50 the large park statue in THPS2 since it looked more like a statue than the real sculpture, so this is a very welcome addition. These challenges will keep you playing for a while, as it takes about five hours to play through the game with one biker. The game also includes a host of multiplayer mode with ten different games such as Horse, High Five (seeing who can jump the highest), and more. This should keep you and friends playing the game for quite some time.
One of the neatest multiplayer modes is a damage test. I spent a sick amount of time crashing on purpose, just to see the brutal wipe out animation. Boy do these things look startlingly life like! Seeing bikers in pain over and over again a replay, which you can pause at any moment, is fun and has never looked so good before this game. There's really no better feeling than taking Dave Mirra and watching his battered carcass bounce around, over, and under a train as it drags him along.
Although this game is an awesome experience, it does not go with out its bad points. The first bad aspect of the game is its sound. When choosing different options on the menu, you're treated to this extremely loud and obnoxious bass sound that'll make you cringe after you hear it enough times. The sound effects during game are not necessarily bad, but they are not anything to scream about either. You have your usual grinding, landing, and crashing noises, but not much other than that. Some ambient environment noise would have been nice, or an appropriately load shriek as Dave is struck by the oncoming train. The sound effects also seem to cut out every now and then, which leaves the game with an incomplete feel.
Bike tricks are more easily seen than skateboarding tricks. |
It doesn't help that the music tends to over power the sound effects. The sound track of the game just does not seem to blend very well with the actual game itself in my opinion. Cypress Hill is not the band I want to hear for hours on end while I am trying to enjoy a game. Don't get me wrong, the music is good quality stereo sound, but, I still don't like it. I know that many of the bands (The Deftones, Sublime, Pennywise, Rancid, etc.) are popular and all, but I just don't like them. I've never been a fan of mixing "real" music with games, though, so take that as you will. That said, the music does fit that whole X-treme image and all, or at least that's what I think since this is the kind of stuff they play during ESPN's coverage of the games.
I also have a few gripes with the otherwise awesome control system. First, when you end up in small spaces (like between two ramps) it gets very difficult to control your biker, and then the camera will freak out and decide to start shifting. After playing the game for about one hour, I found myself getting motion sickness because of this. So, if 3-D videogames make you sick easily, you may want to think twice about this one.
Problems arose with the braking system as well; when I tried to turn around, it would seem a lot easier to stop the bike, and then turn. Well, this sounds easier than it actually is. The bikes seem like they have no braking on them at all. When it looked like I would be stopped, I would press left or right to rotate around, only it wouldn't rotate. The biker would start pedaling, and make a wide turn, which is very inconvenient at times. This made it very hard to stop and turn around in a quick motion. Also very annoying at times is the clipping, sometimes my biker would actually fall through a wall, causing him to crash. If you go close enough to a wall, the front half of your bike will more than likely go through it.
Finally, is the lack of originality in the levels. Although there are quite a few levels, they all seem to get very repetitive. A task in one level would be "grind on the electric boxes," and then a task on another level would be "grind on the wooden boxes." The fact that six of the twelve courses are competition courses also adds to the constant feeling of deja vu. That's not saying the competition courses aren't fun, I just would have liked to have seen a little less of them and a few more original levels. So, while a bunch of levels is a good thing for replay value, I just wish the developers would have put a little more thought into the level designs and tasks.
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