Lots of Fun
After Tony Hawk Pro Skater became such a success, there was a mad rush to put together extreme sports games of a similar look. For example, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX, Matt Hoffman's Pro BMX, Gravity Games Bike (Release date: Summer 2002), TransWorld Snowboarding (Fall 2002), and Chris Edwards Aggressive Inline (May 2002).
Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2 places us back in the saddle (bike term
for seat) of Dave Mirra. When you first start the game you're nobody.
You must work your way through each level to establish yourself, open
up more levels, and be awarded stuff like new bikes. You do this riding
quarter pipes, rails, walls, and getting extreme air while pumping
out tricky combos.
For your campaign to greatness, you can use one of fourteen riders, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. You can change riders between levels if you wish, or even during a level, but you get extra stuff for doing all the challenges in a level with one rider.
When you pop in the disk for the first time only one level is open
for single session, free skate, and multiplayer. Bad thing? Not at
all! That one level happens to be Camp Woodward in its entirety. I
played for 2 hours on this course to start with and every run revealed
new places in the camp and new things to trick off of.
Multiplayer is fun. Everyone likes to sit down with their friends
and battle it out. While the multiplayer games in Dave Mirra 2 are
many, there aren't many truly fun games. Of course that's my personal
opinion. Some of the good games to choose from are "Best Run." Just
as it sounds, players ride a 3 minute run on a park, and the player
who rides the best run (based on trick points accumulated throughout
the run) wins. "B.M.X." is another fun game based on the basketball
game called "Horse." The lead rider does a trick, or a string of tricks
in one air, and the second player must do the exact same trick or
combo. Each time a rider doesn't do the same trick they get a letter.
First with B.M.X. loses. Note: you can also change the word you play
with.
The graphics and detail on Dave Mirra 2 are amazing on the Xbox. The
courses are incredible to look at as you ride. Some courses come complete
with moving vehicles to trick or grind off of (even while they are
moving)! The dirt looks like dirt, the wood like wood, and concrete
like concrete. The bikes are also great in detail. On the flip side
though, the riders don't look quite as real as the courses and look
a little "cartoonish" to me. That, however, isn't really a bad thing.
The main meat of the game is the Proquest mode. Only in Proquest can
you unlock new bikes and new courses. To start you pick a rider and
go into the first level. In the level you must complete objectives
to beat the level and earn Respect points such as complete each challenge
brought by other riders in the game (Computer Players). In Dave Mirra
2 you start out as a fresh rider on his (there are no female riders)
first bike. As you complete each level you will earn Respect points
from other riders. Those respect points allow you to receive invitations
to competitions and earn sponsors which give you better gear. Again,
playing in the Proquest mode is the only way to unlock the other courses
for the other games, there's just no way around it. (Authors tip:
You might want to complete a few runs in Session or Free Skate modes
to learn the controls and tricks before jumping into Proquest.)
Some little things in the game can impact the game on whole. When
your rider crashes there won't be any blood to be seen. I think this
might have been an attempt to get the game a lower rating by ESRB.
If that was the case, they took a wrong turn when they included "Wake
Up" by Rage Against The Machine (the actually cut the intro off the
song; a whole 30 seconds or so) and "Awake" by Godsmack. Even though
the songs are edited they give the game a harder feel. For those who
don't understand that, the language that would not be agreeable to
parents has been edited out, like the radio versions of the songs.
If you listen to the radio a lot, you might not even notice this though.
Another thing to know: read your instruction manual. It gives you
all the information to pull off tricks, grinds and stalls. It also
helps you use the Level Editor, which we did not look at during the
review.
