With
Incog's release of Downhill Domination for the Playstation
2, we finally have mountain bike game representation.
Call me biased as a mountain biker, but this is a great
game!
The
courses include wide open Freeride environments, shorter
Mountain Cross, Slalom tracks brought back to life,
and Technical Downhill. The pace is fast and very realistic.
The 50+ foot gaps and drops only add to the fun and
make me feel a little like Joshua Bender (who appears
in the opening video).
At
first I was looking at generic Rider options and either
a Trek or Specialized bike. After a few wins, I was
unlocking a list of riders including Brian Lopes, Eric
Carter, Missy Glove, Richie Schley, and Tara Llanes.
Bike manufacturers included Ellsworth, Intense, Specialized,
Trek, Giant and others. This became a REAL mountain
bike game!
This
mountain biking game is pretty darn good for a shockwave
game. It's a 3-D environment and better than just about
everything else on this list. What's annoying is the
inability to maneuver very easily, so you have to anticipate
objects (rocks, trees, logs) WELL in advance -- and
there's a ton of them (too many, really). That's about
the only negative for this free web-based bike game.
The
game is pretty fun once you figure it out (take a little
while to get the hang of it). The developer has kept
the game on an island to keep the size of the levels
small (I'd assume). The graphics are decent for a free
downloadable game, but it's something I'd expect on
a handheld. It's $9.95 for the full version, which I
think is steep. Maybe $5, but c'mon, you can probably
pick up Downhill
Domination on Amazon for $10 and it's 100 times
better than this mountain bike game. I still give it
a 4 out of 5 because it has a free version and is better
than most of the other games on this list.
The
first attempt at making a real Mountain Biking game. It
is much better than the free ones below, but since you
have to pay for it, I only gave it a 2.
Apparently,
Nabisco needed a big product launch for their new Fig
Newton bars. This is a downhill racing game from a third
person perspective. It's done with shockwave and has some
nice sound effects. Jumping is pretty cool when you get
past the first checkpoint.
Like
the Tour de France, you are on a road bike. Try to get
to the end in the quickest and record your score. Avoid
rocks, holes, cars and other racers who will try to bump
you. Better graphics and game play than "Dirt Racer"
above, but similar in feel.
