Extreme sports games have given gamers some of video gaming’s all-time most-beloved games. Although a skateboarding franchise is the undisputed king of the genre, other sports like snowboarding and BMX riding have had their own excellent games through the years. With Streetdog BMX Yeah Us! Games is looking to add another great game to the mix.
Did this indie studio stick the landing or totally face plant? I’ve put dozens of hour into the BMX game to find out.
Streetdog BMX Review
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What I Like
It doesn’t take long with Streetdog BMX to tell that it was developed by people who love the genre and understand what makes it so fun. There is a lot to love about loading into a map and heading out in search of challenges to tackle. These were my favorite elements of the game:
It Crushes The Feel Of An Extreme Sports Game
The first thing that jumped out to me when I started playing Streetdog BMX was how familiar it all felt. As someone who grew up putting hours and hours into Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 on my Sega Dreamcast, extreme sports games have a dear place in my heart and, when executed well, can really get my nostalgia going.
Streetdog BMX executes this well. The controls are responsive and easy to come to grips with, and do an excellent job of rolling out the different types of tricks available through the game’s initial tutorial level for any gamers less familiar with the genre.
While a first impression is important, whether that feeling lasts is another matter. Fortunately, this is another area where Streetdog BMX excels. Now, dozens of hours into my time with the game, it still just feels fun riding around a new level and exploring what it entails, and thinking about the different lines and tricking spots.
I’ve spent plenty of time outside of challenges entirely just enjoying the experience of riding around a level and tricking my way across the various obstacles and structures developers have laid out for gamers’ enjoyment.
Finally Completing A Tough Challenge Lands Like Real Life
As a child, I grew up doing the kind of skating that skateboarders like to crack jokes at, the byproduct of being the younger cousin of the #3 inline skater in the world at the time. I spent entire summers on my blades, skating and trying to learn new skills and tricks.
Anyone who has participated in a tricking sport knows the frustration of failing and failing and failing, and the indescribable joy that comes when you finally hit it. It’s a sporting thrill that is hard to match.
Streetdog BMX absolutely creates that same feeling in you as you play. By the time you’ve spent fifteen minutes trying to hit a particularly challenging combo or gap, you can begin to feel like it’s never going to happen. Like, you’re actually getting worse the more you try. And then you hit it.
All of the experiences of grinding through a brutal challenge take me back to my childhood, trying to land a new grind. The game gives you those same exasperated screams when, at the last possible moment, after finally crushing the first half, you mess up the final move and see that red failure bar. And then it gives that explosion of joy, pride, and relief when you finally stick it and see a new medal appear on screen.
It Does The Most With Its Resources
Streetdog BMX was developed by a small team, not a major studio like many of the industry leaders in extreme sports games, and that is fairly apparent as soon as you boot it up. The graphics rely on a cartoony style, rather than the more realistic look associated with other options. The soundtrack, so often a critical point of nostalgic joy for gamers who enjoy this type of game, features no famous musicians with licensed tracks.
And it works. The cartoon-style avatars for your character and for the world at large are pleasing to look at and fun to play around in. The music, while nothing recognizable on its surface, still gives the feeling you’re looking for with an extreme sports game. The team responsible for Streetdog BMX was clearly faced with the challenge of identifying what they could deliver within the genre and how to make that as fun as possible, and they absolutely knocked it out of the park.
What I Don’t Like
No game is perfect, and there will always be things that you identify as you play that you wish were done differently or where it feels like the gameplay experience can be improved. These were the areas I found giving me the most frustration with Streetdog BMX:
Your Trick-nailing BMXer Crashes Out On Minor Obstacles
By far the most common frustration I experienced in my time with Streetdog BMX came down to the times my rider would suddenly crash out over an obstacle that seemed to pale in comparison to some of the other, more difficult terrain and tricks he had pulled off.
Stairs were a particular hold-up, with an inability to effectively navigate up them as well as I’d expect an actual BMX rider to be at least understandable, as it’s still not ideal terrain for a bike. The effect stairs manage to have at times disrupts a ride down, however, clashed with how comfortable I was riding down stairs even as a child, let alone an extremely talented BMX trick rider.
They don’t represent the only times that unexpected crashouts rankled, however. At times, seemingly innocuous situations would prove impassable, most frustratingly during a S-T-R-E-E-T run, which included a drop from a ramp onto the level it raised you to, so subtle it took me several passes to even notice it, which was still enough to cause my rider to crash out and lose a run that was on schedule.
These incidents are not so common as to ruin the game, and with a little experience, it’s easy enough to start identifying areas that might be more problematic than you’d expect at first blush, but it still was a leading source of irritation in my time with Streetdog BMX so far.
The Level Selection Is Small For The Genre
One area where the smaller team responsible for Streetdog BMX also shows its face is in the level selection. Games as far back as the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater have consistently hit or approached double-digit options. If you exclude the brief tutorial arena, which has just five challenges that teach the basics of the game, Streetdog BMX has only six levels.
Now, this does not mean that there are not still a lot of hours you can put into this game, as the 15 challenges per level have delivered quite a good deal of gameplay during my review period. Still, it does present a bit of a limit on how much unique fun you can have within the game, as fewer levels mean less time until you feel like you’ve seen and done everything there is to do in each of them.
The Level Unlock Structure Is Brutal
Unfortunately, the minimal level depth is amplified by the rather tough unlock schedule, with the stars you earn for completing challenges. Earning stars is both how you unlock new levels and unlock the ability to attempt higher difficulty level challenges across all levels.
This can be a pretty standard way of handling unlocks in a game like this; the difficulty curve on the unlock levels feels skewed a bit too far to the difficult side. As a gamer who is nothing special in the genre but also far from the worst, it was proper work to rack up enough stars to fully access everything the game has to offer.
For someone who enjoys extreme sports games but is not great at them, I worry that one or two of the levels could prove to be simply too much for them to unlock, stuck trying to grind out results on challenges that are a bit too much but with too few stars earned to simply move on to a different stage to try it out.
Bottom Line
Like any game, there are areas where Streetdog BMX could have provided a better experience as a gamer, but on balance, I’ve had fun playing with it. While it’s true that with just six main levels it does not provide quite as much game as some others of its type, it also comes at a price tag significantly lower than big-studio releases, currently retailing for $25.
If you’re a fan of other extreme sports games and you’re looking for something new to play, you could do a lot worse than Streetdog BMX. It gives plenty of bang for your buck, and while it has some small bits that can be irritating in the moment, when taken in total, it’s an enjoyable game with good controls, fun challenges, and just enough variety to keep things fun even across an extended play period.
