When I was offered the opportunity to review the much anticipated, Dave
Mirra Freestyle BMX video game, I naturally jumped at it.

Gaming is probably one of my favourite past times, along with riding and
working on this website, and to trial a game that hasn’t been released
yet sounded kind of cool. The fact that it was a BMX game made it even
cooler.

I don’t own a Sony Playstation, all my gaming is on my PC, so my first
problem was to find the right person to help me review the game, Hoffman
Bikes’ Dave Cleary came to mind. Not only does he have a PlayStation he
spends hours a night on it, all the prerequisites for a good co-reviewer.

The only other Playstation game I have looked at was No Fear Downhill
Mountain biking…and to put it bluntly I thought it sucked. Not only because of the crazy ass controls but the restrictions of the courses, very narrow trails and not much variety and most of all not enough fun. Dave Mirra’s Freestyle BMX blew us away from the start, there’s a cool video intro, which basically introduces the riders featured in the game. Then straight into game play, select your rider, jump park and bike and your off.

The game is mission based, so you get a list of things to do and you go out and do them, the ones that come to mind are to grind the bulldozers, jump across moving trains and grind 160 feet along a power cable. You don’t even have to complete the missions, you can just ride and go for big airs and big points, but there are time restrictions and you only progress if you complete the tasks.

As you progress you get upgraded to different levels unlocking new bikes, new clothing and riding areas, and sometimes even find secret areas.

The only problem with the missions is some of them start to get a little difficult and each area has a single song, if you take 30 minutes to complete a level you will have to put up with the same song for 30 minutes. To be able to shuffle through the sound track all the time would have been a nice touch. We found it easier to cope with by turning the music off and playing a CD in the background.

Doing a trick is not difficult, even for a novice who probably spent all of 30 minutes at a PlayStation his whole life, it takes a few minutes to get used to just getting around at first (steering, braking and getting up to speed, etc), but once you are beyond that the sky is literally the limit. Landing is a little forgiving, I launched off a big jump and over rotated and landed sideways and still rode off, but it’s a game, I’d hate to just keep crashing, there would be nothing more frustrating.

You can jump onto the roofs of buildings, get air from and grind everything in sight. The game boasts 1,300 different tricks so you’ll never get bored doing the same thing over and over.

There is a lot of advertising throughout the game, sponsors logos on ramps, on clothing and even on the little booklet you get with the game. Not that it’s bad, in a way it adds to the whole feel of the game, working at getting big sponsors…isn’t that every BMXers dream?

Aside from the repetition of the music there was little to criticise, the graphics are a little chunky but I’m guessing it has something to do with the way the game is pieced together to get such a realistic look to the way the rider jumps and crashes. If the rider was a little smaller on the screen it would give a better viewing area and give the effect that you are jumping even higher, etc.

In general the sound track is cool, game play is cool, you can take any jump at any angle and pull any trick you like and all in a variety of environments (12 trails and skate parks). Having nothing to compare it with, I imagine it will be difficult to beat, although I hear there are other BMX games on the way.

The places to ride are based on real parks such as Woodward, Mirra’s own back yard and others, the choice of riders are some of today’s best Freestyle and Dirt Jumpers and their bikes.

Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX is available on Sony PlayStation and is due for release also on Sega Dreamcast and on Game Boy Color (ideal for road trips). It sounds like there is already another Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX on the cards, I saw an ad for a competition where you can win and be an animated character in the next release. The only problem with that is it’s an American phone number so it can only be won by an American.

In summary it got a thumbs up from Dave Cleary and from bmxultra.com, thing is now I have to find the bucks to buy my own PlayStation so I can master this game. bmxultra.com would like to thank Acclaim for considering us for the review and give them a big pat on the back for a job well done.

Reviewed: 05/10/2000