Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 3

One Response to “Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 3”

1. TwistaG says:

   August 3, 2010 at 4:20 pm

   Well, it’s no bolt from the blue that Acclaim wussed out of bringing the controversial BMX XXX series to the Game Boy Advance. Younger demographic aside, I doubt that any developer could accurately described the topless experience with a rudimentary 3D engine, though it certainly would have been droll to see a team try to make the breasts stand out on the GBA’s limited resolution screen. Or animate sprite-based dogs mating on the side of the road. Instead, Acclaim rightfully continues the Dave Mirra changeable BMX series on the handheld, putting the team responsible for the previous GBA Dave Mirra title released pretty much a year ago. Other than the fresh licensed sountrack, this design doesn’t add a whole lot to the genre or significantly increase on what the team already did in last year’s version. Even still, Dave Mirra 3 is a solid extreme sports title for the GBA. Dave Mirra changeable BMX 3 follows the established Tony Hawk gameplay nearly to a T in a two-wheeling BMX environment. Sorry for making the comparison, guys, but it’s inevitable: Tony Hawk did it first and best, and Dave Mirra 3 doesn’t really deviate from the formula. Players hop on their BMX bike and hit the different parks in the cartridge, performing set tasks on a checklist to buy cash that will both increase the player’s attributes as well as unlock the more advanced bike parks in the game. Each task has a monetary regard; some tasks are a “unadorned” matter of grabbing a high score owing to tricks, others require a bit more work in a scavenger hunt, locating and grabbing (or knocking over) items peppered all over the area. Dave Mirra 3follows the “ancient” standard of a two minute timer where players have to accomplish as much as they possibly can before the time runs out, ending the run. After Aggressive Inline on the console established the brilliant, mission-based “endless run” gameplay (which Tony Hawk 4 adopted months later), it’s really hard to go back to the hugely limiting timed runs in an extreme sports title. Full Stout’s BMX sequel also builds upon the game engine the team established for Dave Mirra 2. The polygonal character/bitmap social class engine is as quick and charming as it ever was, and allows for much larger skateparks that seem to go on nearly forever. Character models look a small goofy on the character brilliant screen because they lack any sort of texture work, but in action they look fine on the GBA screen. These guys have a ton of different moves that can be pulled off on the vert ramps, grind rails, and lips, and thanks to the game not having a console version to match, the development team tweaked the controls to make it simple to pull off 360s, 540s or higher simply by hitting the L button. This sequel also advances the sequel with its two player link cable modes, seemingly spawned from the team’s previous Aggressive Inline GBA effort. But the engine still has some really wonky crash detection that hasn’t been cleaned up since last year’s version. Most notably are the situations where momentum grinds suddenly jerk into peg stalls for no rhyme or reason. To leap into a grind on an object, players have to be extremely precise in their landings, otherwise the grinds will never connect with the rails…this adds to the game’s challenge, but it’s more frustrating than not to try to latch onto a rail to grind, only to miss by that much simply because the crash detection’s a bit on the loose side.
   The development team certainly impresses in the audio department. Acclaim gave the guys free reign to include a few of the same licensed songs from BMX XXX, and the Dave Mirra 3 cartridge is packed to the brim with brilliant quality recordings of these tunes. Familiar tunes from Saliva, Ten Foot Pole, New Found Glory, N.E.R.D., Sludgefeast, and Green Day compliment the extreme sports action. Contracted, these songs had to be abridged down from their original form to fit on the limited cartridge space, but they loop seamlessly after a 45 second sampling. The only real conundrum is that the designers didn’t offer any sort of randomizer for the songs; each level has a default song that plays until the user changes the song in the pause menu. But when that level starts up again, the default song returns. Terrible design choice here, simply because the levels are quite extensive and require several plays owing to before the user can go on…and by that time, that one song has really worn out its welcome. Dave Mirra 3 isn’t a terrible game at all. It’s in fact a lot of fun once you get over a few of the quirks that surface during its gameplay, like its wonky crash detection during grinds and item pick-ups. Its more limiting “release run” gameplay is probably the game’s largest disappointment, as the designers didn’t go the series into the “new age” of extreme sports gameplay. But the team does, but, go the GBA audio forward; the music is downright outstanding and extremely impressive for a Game Boy Advance title, even though it’s just compression and gifted looping of a shortened sample music bite. Dave Mirra 3 still doesn’t reach the Tony Hawk GBA production standards, but it’s still an enjoyable title in its own right.
   Rating: 3 / 5