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Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX Preview

This PlayStation game is on its way to the PC, and we've got impressions of the latest build.

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Mat Hoffman joins a group of seven other riders, each with different skills and abilities.
Mat Hoffman joins a group of seven other riders, each with different skills and abilities.

Thanks in large part to the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, games based on so-called extreme sports have experienced a resurgence in popularity across all platforms, including the PC. In an attempt to continue its success within the subgenre, Neversoft--the creator of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series--developed Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX for the PlayStation. The game essentially borrowed the trick system and other elements from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater but made a few minor changes to accommodate the transition from skateboards to bikes. The PC version is a port of the PlayStation version released this past May, and as expected, it features a boost in resolution and other slight graphical tweaks, but its gameplay remains faithful to that of its console counterpart.

In the career mode, you'll have to compete against the clock.
In the career mode, you'll have to compete against the clock.

Much like the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series, Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX features a career mode, a multiplayer mode (hot seat or two player), a single session mode, a free ride mode, and a park editor. The career mode lets you select from a lineup of eight riders, including Hoffman, each with different statistics and abilities that directly affect in-game performance. For example, Mat Hoffman has excellent air skills, which makes it much easier to pull off multiple aerial tricks in a short time. Meanwhile, a rider like Dennis McCoy has an average rating in nearly all categories, making him the most balanced of the group and the easiest to use in the early levels. The differences between these riders aren't noticeable for the first few runs, but once you reach a goal that requires proficiency in one of the skills, you'll start to pay more attention to them.

The career mode features a total of eight parks, but you have to complete a specific number of goals in the first one before you can unlock any of the others. These range from the basic task of breaking the high score to finding some hidden area within a level by performing a series of seemingly impossible stunts. In Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX, these goals are difficult from the very start, and you'll have to become familiar with the ins and outs of the trick system quickly--though that shouldn't be too difficult for those familiar with the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater system.

The other single-player modes in Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX essentially act as the practice sessions for the career mode. Single session is similar to the career mode, except there are no set goals for any of the unlocked parks, so you can focus on performing tricks during a preset time limit. Another mode, free ride, is a little more basic because it keeps track of single trick points rather than the total amount of points. There's also no time limit, so you can explore a level and find any secret areas or scout new trick areas that might yield a higher number of points. Lastly, the park editor gives all the budding park designers out there a chance to exhibit their creative skills by building a park. Again, it's similar to the Pro Skater park editor, so those familiar with that feature should have no trouble concocting parks right away. It's also easy enough to use that you should have no problem producing a simple park if you're a newcomer, though.

The Trick System

The trick system in Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX is similar to the one found in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2.
The trick system in Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX is similar to the one found in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2.

Since Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX essentially uses the same engine used to create the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games, the only real differences between the games' trick systems are the result of the transition from skateboards to BMX bikes. Grinding is still performed by gliding near the edges of objects such as pipes, metal beams, and the lip of a pool or vertical ramp. Most of the grinding in the early stages is simple, but you'll find that it becomes difficult to successfully grind on a series of objects in later parks. Aerial tricks are also straightforward and can be executed by performing small bunny hops or launching off vertical ramps. While you might be content with performing a single trick in the air at first, you'll eventually start to string the different aerial tricks together for higher point totals. One of the most basic aerial tricks is the flip, which you can combine with simple grabs to rack up the points, and as you become more familiar with the game, the trick combinations become much more complicated, often involving four or five tricks in a single jump. Manuals, or ground-based tricks, are also present and can be used to link certain types of tricks.

Bad camera angles can cause quite a few accidents.
Bad camera angles can cause quite a few accidents.

Because the trick system is so straightforward, fans of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series should have no trouble jumping right in and executing some spectacular combinations. However, there are still some problems in this particular build of the game that make the gameplay a little frustrating. The camera tends to get trapped in certain points, particularly when a rider collides with a wall or a tight corner. When this happens, it's difficult just to turn your rider around in the proper direction because the camera continually switches as it fights out of the area it's trapped in. The camera occasionally affects aerial tricks as well, especially in multitiered levels, where you often make contact with objects located just above you, making it almost impossible to complete complicated tricks.

Another potential problem in this build of Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX is the seemingly inconsistent collision detection. There are moments where it looks like you've executed a trick perfectly and your bike should land properly, but you crash once you make contact with the ramp. Granted, you have to be aware of how your bike is positioned after a combination, but even the slightest adjustment sends you sliding into the dirt. Other times, your rider will land on his side after executing an aerial trick, but for some reason, he won't crash. It's really odd, and hopefully, Gray Matter--the team responsible for most of Neversoft's console-to-PC ports--has time to fix these inconsistencies.

Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX offers many of the same features found in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Unfortunately, at this point, the spotty collision detection and annoying camera problems keep it from reaching the same level of polish the Tony Hawk series exhibits. The game is scheduled for release in mid-October.

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