The biggest letdown is the number of stages. The game advertises "3 realistic levels full of pipes, jumps and rails" along with "6 bonus levels." Well, the six bonus levels are all small sky fortress challenges which, while fun to complete once, aren't really worth revisiting again. This leaves the three main levels, whose challenges are all too quickly run through. While any game of this nature is going to last well beyond the initial challenges, it's still a shame that it's over so fast. The stages are great, but three stages seem so small compared to other games' offerings, and I can see many people growing bored of the game when they unlock and play through all it has to offer, in only a handful of hours. Even if this was designed as a children's game, there's really no excuse for the lack of levels.
I'm also annoyed by all the wasted potential the game constantly flaunts. First we have the neat 2D intro which sets up the wacky premise involving the giant robot and kidnapped friends. We then have a game full of fictional kids, and there's a silly credits film you can watch involving people in animal costumes racing around on Razor scooters. The game has such a great license to be truly creative and really have fun with its environments and tricks, but it never bothers to take the chance aside from a handful of secret characters. Toy stores, moon cities, giant worlds, and more could have really helped put a unique face on the game as well as extended play beyond the three whole levels. It's such a waste.
The product as a whole seems rushed -- not due to shoddy workmanship but rather thanks to the lack of levels, less than stellar presentation, and skimpy options. The trick menu and replay feature are nice standard features for these kinds of games, but these kinds of games also usually contain a host of play modes not found in this game. There is the circuit mode outlined above (a single campaign playable with any character), a practice mode without the in-game timer, and a 2-player versus mode. The competitive 2-player mode is only a score attack and must be played by taking turns; play two minutes and then wait two minutes to see how the other person does. I also find it cheap how the game recycles the circuit level select screens for the practice and versus mode -- minus the challenge text -- which leads to a tiny level image on the right of the screen and a whole bunch of white space on the left.
Who needs the school bus? I ride my scooter to school. |
The level design also has a few quirks, none of which detract from the game too much but still make me wonder like a blind songwriter. There's a a lengthy incline in the school level leading to a quarterpipe, but there's nothing really special trickwise to make the journey worth it. There are three wheels on the hand of the giant clock in the clock tower level which is only reachable by a halfpipe assisted leap, and if you miss there's no turning back to try again since the drop off to the area below is too deep. Actually, there is a way to try again, but you have to sacrifice valuable seconds by sending your kid plummeting from the edge of the building. Falling off a level (only possible on the clock tower and sky fortress stages) sends you back to the start, annoying considering most games would put you close to the area where you fell from the course. Thankfully these gaffs are few and far between, but are noticeable dents in the game's otherwise good design.
Finally, there's the music. Razor Freestyle Scooter copies the Tony Hawk approach as numerous others have by including real music tracks in with the game. I generally don't have a problem with it, but here it's out of place. The cute kid theme and general wackiness doesn't fit well with indie rock. There's eight songs from five bands (Ex Number Five, Never Too Late, Sick Shift, Sloppy Meat Eaters, and Threefoot), each with its own page in the manual for reasons unknown to me. Though I rather like the selection of bands and actually appreciate the risk involved signing relative unknowns for a game, I would have still prefered something more appropriate. If the developer had the guts or budget to veer a bit from the formula the game could have really been something special. Ah well. Maybe next time.
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