| Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 |
| November 20, 2001 - Acclaim's big GameCube launch title is Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2. Featuring vast levels and an extremely flexible trick system, the ambitious second iteration of the Mirra series improves on some of its past faults but still lacks the spit and polish needed to make it truly great. Features Exclusively features 10-time world champion Dave Mirra Choose from 14 different BMX pros including John "Luc-E" Englebert, Mike Laird, Todd Lyons, Ryan Nyquist, and more Explore 10 massive levels, four times bigger than before, for the very best in vert, dirt, street and park riding Flexible "S.I.K" trick system lets riders pull tricks, modify them, and link them for more than 1,500 tricks Compete to earn more than 40 real-life BMX sponsors during your ProQuest experience Earn new bikes for increased abilities Create your own BMX park with an incredibly powerful park editor Killer soundtrack featuring: Ozzy Osbourne, The Cult, Methods of Mayhem and Godsmack 13 turn-based multiplayer games For one or two players Gameplay Developed by Z-Axis, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 is the most ambitious bicycle motocross title on the market. Everything about it is big. The level designs are absolutely monstrous, it's packed to the brim with gameplay objectives, and the trick system is incredibly deep. Coming face-to-face with Mirra BMX 2 could be likened to gazing at the Grand Canyon for the first time. There is just so much to see and do it's overwhelming. The main mode of play and biggest attraction is the ProQuest. You begin by choosing from one of 14 BMX pros or even Slim Jim Guy if that's your style. Unfortunately, there is no create-a-player option, but each of the 14 bikers is uniquely balanced and you can earn better bikes for increased abilities including air, speed, manuals, wallrides and more. With your biker of choice you'll hit the ProQuest to complete objectives, earn respect points, and compete in competitions. The idea is to take your seemingly amateur rider, improve his skills to become a champion, earn new sponsorships and much more. This is the ProQuest and there is a lot to it. You must work you way through a total of 10 colossal levels -- two of which are only available in the GameCube or Xbox version -- crammed with varying degrees of objectives. By completing these objectives you earn respect points which are integral to unlocking new bikes, new tracks, and all of the secrets. A task as simple as grinding a rail might earn you a few hundred respect points out of the total 50,000. No -- that is not a typo. You have the ability to earn up to 5,000 respect points in each of the 10 levels. As noted, Mirra BMX 2 is huge. The combination of finding level gaps, completing objectives, and competing in competitions for medals will earn you respect points. Over the course of 10 levels it begins to add up, but even then you'll have to be extremely determined to earn even your first 5,000 points, at which point you will earn your first new bike. However, the sheer size and scope of the game, while impressive, works against it. The first level, Woodward Camp, has been beautifully recreated to represent the real world location. Riding around it you get your first taste of immensity. There are a number of barns, such as the famous Lot 8, which contain individual skate parks within them. Remember the Warehouse in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater? Just one of the many barns in Woodward contains a park that size. It is a great feeling indeed to ride from across the camp and enter one of these huge barns and break out new trick sets and gaps that you never knew existed. Unfortunately because of the size you can actually get lost, and outside of a good memory you have nothing to guide you. For example, one objective in Woodward has you knocking over four ladders randomly placed around the camp. When you get close enough to one of the ladders text will appear in the upper right-hand corner of the screen letting you know you're getting close. To further help you see it the ladder will be overlaid with a blinking green texture. While this sounds user-friendly you still have to travel around the huge camp blindly searching them out. Even worse, the blinking green "I'm your objective" texture doesn't appear until you're really close. All of your objectives rely on these texture overlays and the concept falls short of execution due to the large levels. Something like a radar or a pointer would have helped greatly, and would help to encourage less persistent players. It can feel somewhat incomplete at points. One objective required a "one foot flair" over Dave Mirra's halfpipe in Greenville. Creating for a very frustrating situation, a "flair" is not defined in the in-game Trick List. While the Trick List is extremely useful for learning new tricks and looking things up there are just so many tricks Z-Axis couldn't include them all. For this particular objective, asking the user to pull off a one foot flair creates a baffling situation. Without looking up what a flair is in real life (a 180 backflip) you are left to guess. It's small balance issues like these that bitter the formula for a really great freestyle BMX game. However, enthusiastic players willing to overlook some of these problems and experience the ambitious gameplay core of Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 may be pleasantly surprised. The trick system is by far one of the most impressive points. Using what is called the S.I.K. Trick System you can pull off an absurd amount of tricks. The heart of the system relies on the directional stick (or D-pad) and the B and X buttons. Most tricks are performed by tapping in a number of directions and then hitting one of the buttons. A simple can-can is an air trick, performed by tapping left and then B. The bread and butter of this innovative system is the X-button modifier. You can take that same can-can and modify it by tapping left and X while still in the air. This will morph the trick into a no hander can-can, and pressing right and X instead of left would have turned it into a one hander can-can. You can modify almost any trick like this, and with eight different directions on the D-pad you can see how there are over 1,500 tricks. Harder tricks require double taps, triple taps, and rotation in many directions. You can then link these together with manuals, grinds, and stalls for stunning combos. It's easy to impress yourself when you pull of a no hander flair to icepick stall to Smith grind to one footer manual to...well, you get the point. The S.I.K. trick system is indeed nauseatingly impressive. Additionally the Park Editor is filled with options. There are a vast number of jumps, rails and world objects that you can choose from, and the terrain tool lets you raise and lower objects for more creative designs. You can even add lighting to your gigantic park as you please. This alone will suck away hours of your time. Multiplayer There are a total of 13 different turn-based multiplayer games so Mirra masters can compete against friends for bragging rights. Z-Axis decided not to go with a two-player split screen because it felt that this would take away from the experience, and we imagine it would hurt the relatively solid framerate too. Here are just a few of the modes: Best Run: Three minutes, highest score High Five: Best-of-Five, biggest single trick in 30 seconds B-M-X: A variation on H-O-R-S-E Random Spot: Single tricks at five random spots, 15 seconds for highest score Wipeout: Three chances to do the most bodily harm Longest Grind: Three chances for longest grind Needless to say, there are some really creative games that give the multiplayer mode much-needed depth. Graphics Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 comes to GameCube with crisper "high-rez" (yes, Acclaim still uses this marketing term created on the N64) textures than the PlayStation 2 iteration as well as a solid framerate of 60 frames per second. There are only a few framerate hitches and the Swamp level demonstrates some pretty nasty slowdown, but overall the engine runs fairly smoothly. The most impressive aspect of it is the large environments which load in under 10 seconds. The environments draw out fairly far and maintain a clean look, but suffer from pop-up and a decidedly low polygon look in comparison to more technically advanced GameCube software. Another huge detriment to the gameplay is camera. It's very elastic, occasionally getting caught on world objects and sometimes behind them. Even worse, when you fall off the bike or hit a wall the camera often spins in front of your rider, disorienting you and further making it hard to go in the direction you want. It's a problem that rears its head every so often, but when I does it is very frustrating. Sound Every extreme sports title must come with an equally extreme soundtrack. Mirra BMX 2's is no exception with artists including Rage Against the Machine, The Cult, Godsmack, Ozzy Osbourne, Sum 41, Fenix TX, Methods of Mayhem, Sublime, A Tribe Called Quest, and Gang Starr. It's a magnificent soundtrack indeed, but due to the scope of the game you'll probably be dead tired of the songs by the third level. It's good while it lasts, but boredom is inevitable and pales in comparison to Xbox's rip-your-own-music feature. Sound effects are commendable. Birds chirp often at Woodward Camp, cars hum in the distance in the Commercial District, and you can hear your bike chain buzzing in freewheel. There's a lot of atmospheric attitude, but it's nothing over the top. The sound library is noble and includes true-to-life sounds, but all grinds, skids, and crashes sound the same no matter what surface you're on. |
| Presentation 8.0 Graphics 7.0 Sound 8.0 Gameplay 8.0 Lasting Appeal 9.0 OVERALL SCORE 8.0 |
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