Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX Preview

With the success of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series on various consoles and the release of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 on the PC, publishers and developers are now beginning to target the PC for their extreme sports games. The question of whether or not the PC audience is receptive to the extreme sports genre still remains unanswered, since only a few of the games are actually worth playing - but Acclaim is hoping that it can capitalize on the amount of attention that the subgenre is receiving with its upcoming extreme sports game, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX. Freestyle BMX not only looks similar to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, but it also plays very much like it. However, there are still a number of problems that Acclaim needs to address before the game hits store shelves.

Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX gives you a number of modes at the beginning of the game, but like other extreme sports games, the number of options in these modes are limited until you compete in the game's proquest or career mode. The career mode lets you start out as a rookie who has no sponsors, the worst bike, and only one track to practice on; and to top it off, you have to compete in a tank top and denim shorts while other competitors are clad in sponsored clothing. By completing different objectives on each track, you unlock more tracks, and you also begin to receive attention from different sponsors, like Adidas. Your BMX freestylist reflects endorsements by wearing different articles of clothing from the company during a race.

The first set of amateur objectives is relatively easy to complete; overall, the game has a wide variety of objectives. On one stage, you may have to execute only a basic back flip while racing over a hill or grind a specific rail, but other stages require you to perform tasks like shutting cabin doors by jumping into them. After you complete the first three sets of amateur objectives for three individual tracks, you must complete the professional objectives for each track, and, needless to say, these can be rather difficult. The loading dock stage tells you to grind the tops of four garage doors in order to open them - it sounds easy enough, but each garage door is positioned at an odd angle with a railing that can interfere with the timing of your jump. Another track makes use of four golf carts that are placed in hard-to-find areas, so not only do you use up valuable time just trying to find the golf carts, but you also use up even more valuable seconds actually trying to jump over them. Though you can become frustrated quickly with many of the professional level objectives, sponsorship and the possibility of earning a new bike are great incentives to keep working at completing these seemingly impossible objectives.

Nice Moves

Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX plays very similarly to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and as such, fans of the latter should have no problem pulling off the many tricks available in the game; but those who are new to the extreme sport genre may have a slightly more difficult time. However, Dave Mirra's control scheme is simple enough that the learning curve is not nearly as steep as it can be in other sports games. Executing tricks in Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX simply requires a series of button combinations, or, in some cases, just holding down the button. If your button combinations are complex, you can execute complicated tricks and receive a high score, but if your combinations are simple, your tricks correspond accordingly. For example, one of the most basic tricks in Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX is the backflip. By pressing down once on the keyboard or controller and pressing the jump button, you perform a backflip, but if you want to make it more complicated and earn more points, you can press down three times right before a jump and execute a triple backflip automatically - unless you manage to land safely before the third backflip, which is often the case with such a difficult trick.

In addition to basic tricks, there are a number of button combinations that let you execute different variations of tricks. One of the easiest variations to use is the 180-degree spin, which is performed by pressing either the left or right buttons while you're in the middle of performing a trick. If you land safely, the 180 gives you an added bonus to your score. You can also perform tricks similar to grabs in skateboarding and tie those in with basic tricks, so, theoretically, you can perform a single backflip and then add a superman - a trick in which you grab the handlebars and push your feet out from under you to simulate flying. Again, these are basic variations, but they can be difficult to do on your first run-through of the game. Moreover, there are even tricks that involve the handlebars of your bike, like releasing your grasp of the handlebars and raising your hands in the air, which can significantly increase your score and the difficulty level. Grinds, or tricks that involve riding rails, are also a good way to increase your score, because you can execute them at the end of every trick on a vertical ramp.

These tricks make the game a little unrealistic, as most BMX professionals probably couldn't do a double flip into a perfect grind, but they act as a nice buffer zone if you don't think you're going to successfully execute a complicated maneuver. As you become more familiar with what you're capable of in terms of basic tricks, you can execute more-difficult tricks without a problem and rely less on grinding to finish a trick.

He's No Hoffman

Though most of the gameplay and visual elements appear to be complete, the preview build of Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX does have a number of quirks, all of which may receive attention before the game's release. One of these aforementioned quirks is the shadow that surrounds your BMX - it's just a box, and in no way does it actually reflect the shape of the skater. In addition, the collision detection seems a little off. For example, executing grinds is already incredibly easy, but it's made even easier by the fact that the rails seem to be magnetic and pull your bike in from at least two feet away. Again, this is an early build; so hopefully, Acclaim will address these somewhat minor issues before the game's final release. To its credit, the PC version does look much better than its console counterparts - it has a significantly higher resolution and has cleaner textures, especially on your helmet. However, some of the in-game objects, like buildings and the actual player model, look a little simplistic, and they aren't quite up to the high standards set by other PC games, which, unfortunately, is all too common on console-to-PC ports. There also appears to be a slight problem with draw-in - objects, such as buildings and trees, suddenly appear off in the distance.

Nonetheless, it appears that both hard-core BMX fans and fans of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 are going to enjoy Dave Mirra's Freestyle BMX. It contains a deep career mode that gives you an opportunity to test your skills with varying objectives, which change as you progress through different tracks and learn to perform more-complicated stunts. If you don't want to jump into the career mode right away, you can play through the freeride mode just to get a feel for the game and an understanding of the in-game physics and the game's limitations. After you gain a feel for the game in the no-stress freeride mode, you can try out each of the different BMX professionals, including Dave Mirra himself, to find out which rider best fits your style. You can then move on to the session mode, which features a time limit and a point system, but you don't have to worry about completing any of the objectives in the career mode. The same applies to the different bikes that become available - you can test them out in freeride or session modes to see what each bike is capable of. The most important aspect of the game is the career mode, because it serves as the motivation for unlocking additional tracks and securing more sponsors; so if you completely avoid it, you will have access to only one track, a rider with no sponsors, and a relatively poor BMX bike.