Developer
Paradigm
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Publisher
Infogrames
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Genre
Racing
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Players
1-2
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ESRB
T - Teen
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Infogrames and Paradigm brush off a year-old PS2 game to try and catch some
big air. Will you want to be downwind?
There
have been many successful takes on off-road motocross racing
that have each uniquely found a way to offer an enjoyable
experience. In recent years, Microsoft’s Motocross Madness
series on the PC, Nintendo’s Excitebike 64 for the Nintendo
64, and EA Big’s multiplatform Freekstyle each have their
own style and feel that paints the sport in a different light
and makes the experience a great deal of fun. Unfortunately,
Big Air Freestyle is largely uninspired, and while
technically sound and solid in concept and design, the execution
lacks any kind of originality or notable features.
Big Air Freestyle
is actually a polished-up port of a PlayStation 2 game by
the name of MXrider, released about a year ago. The game wasn’t
the most spectacular hit at the time though, and one wonders
why Infogrames felt the need to bring it out once again so
long after the initial release. As for MXrider, the game at
least had the FIM license (Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme),
which is absent in Big Air Freestyle… Well OK, there
probably aren’t many people who will care that it’s gone,
but being that Big Air Freestyle mostly aims is in
the “Sim” direction, the loss of a license does detract from
the authenticity.
The gameplay in Big
Air Freestyle is divided into Freestyle, Challenge and
Race modes. The Freestyle mode has you performing tricks for
point scores and the Challenge mode has you completing specific
goals (like performing a specific stunt in thirty seconds)
to open up new riders. The main part of the game though, is
the Race mode, in which you succeed on various race courses
to gain access to… more race courses.
The game features indoor
and outdoor areas, and the main premise behind the gameplay
is somewhat similar to that in the EA Sports Big games, like
SSX and Freekstyle. Throughout the game, performing tricks
adds to a boost meter give you an extra shot of speed when
you need it. Unfortunately, the boost isn’t particularly effective,
and it’s usually easier to win a race just by maneuvering
your bike properly, learning how to brake using your front
and rear wheels. It ain’t rocket science, either. One button
is like a normal brake and the other allows you to make sharp
turns... like a power slide only with no power and not much
sliding. All said and done, the gameplay ends up becoming
rather simple.
Earlier I said the
game seems “mostly” intended to be a sim. The environments
and riders seem realistically-designed enough, and the racing
does seem to try for a “sim” kind of feel, but often character
movement and animation seem somewhat unrealistic and the stunts
often look absolutely ridiculous. A character will be riding
straight ahead through a jump one moment, only to spin 360
degrees on its side and stop perfectly upright in midair the
next. Any attention to realism the developer had been paying
to the game obviously stopped before trick design.
The rest of the game’s
visual aspects seem like just as much of a strange split between
good attention to detail and a blatant lack of attention.
The areas you race in look good, albeit somewhat bland, but
some effects like water and mud are even a bit impressive,
but everything is extremely repetitive. The game does offer
a good sense of speed. Aside from weather conditions and a
different picture for a background, you’ll often have a hard
time telling the difference between one track and another.
Same problem with the
riders and bikes: They look good enough, and even slowly get
covered in mud. But the fact that every single rider looks
exactly like the next (albeit with a palette swap), adds to
the lack of variety in the courses to make just about everything
in the game reflect this bland, repetitive theme. If that’s
not bad enough, the game features a minimalist presentation,
with menus full of text and not a whole lot else that take
far too long to navigate, and the requisite loading screen
every few minutes.
The audio is equally
uninspired, featuring a lackluster soundtrack, hushed audience
applause and one solitary motorbike noise blaring over the
both of them. Add in a slush noise when your bike sloshes
through mud, a slight “Whump” and an “Oof” whenever your biker
crashes and that’s pretty much all there is to note in the
sound department. No fanfare when you win a race, no speech
from the riders and no announcer commenting on the competition.
When it comes down
to it, Big Air Freestyle doesn’t seem to have any areas
where it particularly excels, it doesn’t do anything original
and it doesn’t even seem to have any enthusiasm for what it
does do. Paradigm seemed to pack more excitement into their
opening logo than into anything else in the game. And if it
doesn’t seem like the developer was particularly enthusiastic
about their own game, why should we be?
Jake McNeill
Tsk tsk… This coming from the folks that developed Pilotwings 64, Beetle
Adventure Racing and the excellent Spy Hunter remake.
Big Air Freestyle: The Scores
|
|
Graphics
|
Sound
|
Gameplay
|
Depth
|
Presentation
|
Overall
|
7.0
|
5.0
|
6.0
|
6.0
|
4.0
|
6.0
|
|
The
Final Word:
Uninspired, unoriginal, repetitive and simple.
A perhaps otherwise decent game made boring
by a complete lack of personality and a poor
presentation. The GameCube already has two better
motocross games in Freekstyle and MX Superfly,
and if youre reading this, you probably
have a computer capable of playing one of the
Motocross Madness games. My advice to you is
to take the $50 you would have spent on Big
Air Freestyle and invest it into one of those.
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