Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 Review
Well, Dave Mirra has dropped in, and it appears that it has the potential to become THE BMX game to own. It’s superb graphics, superior moves, and expansive levels top anything that Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX has to offer.
The graphics are great, and you won’t find a glitch anywhere during the game. Motorboats whiz by you, large amounts of cars and trucks motor along, all detailed lovingly, and running along at a smooth 60 fps. Z Axis hit the ‘xer’s faces right on the mark, but they don’t animate at all, which seems really strange when you’re facing your rider head on. A major gripe that I had was the grind animations, which are completely unrealistic and even funny to watch. It’s much like THPS’s balancing acts were like before they improved. Also, the animations from a jump to the grind aren’t fluid at all; you see the rider jump, then turn in midair…it looks really odd, especially on a half-pipe.
One thing that I really enjoy about this game are its simplistic game controls. You use A only to jump (holding it prepares you for a jump, therefore reducing your speed), the B + X buttons are the modifiers for the tricks, and Y is grind. Combining these two modifiers means you can get a pretty hefty number of tricks to perform. You can even press “Down, Down + B” to perform such maneuvers as the Tabletop Backflip, Double Backflip, and Frontflip. Sadly, I found these combos out too late before I had to return the game. The one gripe that I had was the manual and trick linking combos. I found it really hard to pull off a manual at any given time, and it’s basically impossible to link together tricks. Why this could be good or bad, at least it’s not a THPS clone that we’re so used to seeing these days. By far the best part of this game are the interactive environments that you can explore. The levels, in my opinion, are far greater and wider than the biggest level on THPS3, and that’s saying a lot. I was amazed at how many cars they managed to fit on a road at the city level; it was an exact representation of a normal street! The levels are what makes this game fun to play. It’s also fun getting a ton of air and letting loose a ton of tricks! The gameplay is very well tuned. There are a ton of options available on multiplayer mode, but sadly you can’t just goof around with your friend on one level together. The ProQuest is polished, but some of the objectives I found were too hard, or didn’t make that much sense. Then again, maybe I just suck or didn’t spend enough time playing the game.
Overall, Mirra is definitely worth a buy. Dave Mirra finally seems like a non-THPS clone. I mean, how many BMXer’s do you see linking together combos in real life compared to skateboarders? Not many. Making the combo system the same as THPS would have greatly drained the game’s realism, and I’m really glad that Z-Axis took a different route and tried as much originality as possible with their latest effort.
Visuals: 8.5
Sound: 8
Originality: 6
Replay: 9
Overall: 8