Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2

"What ignorant freak chose this soundtrack.."

Sports games like this have almost always been a instant winner with me. I don't know. Maybe it's the interesting soundtrack, or the fun style of gameplay. Who knows. Who cares. Whatever the case be; when I went to rent Dave Mirra 2, I had an extreme sense of joy when I picked it up. I had bought the first Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX on Dreamcast, and loved it. Then I showed it to a friend of mine, who hates these games. After playing some, he became addicted to it. Now he is considering buying the game sometime. So, being with that same friend, we decided to pick this up. Looking over the back, we saw the average screenshots, the seemingly promising band names, and thought that this would definitly rule. So we check it out along with Dynasty Warriors 3, and Metal Gear Solid 2. So as we both sit in the car, we're eagerly awaiting to pull off some 900s, listen to some Rage Against the Machine, and stay awake all night. Well, we did all that. But we weren't staying awake all night because of this game. In fact, if we had played this much more we would have gone to sleep quite fast..

Huh? I don't want to talk to some guy. Just give me the damned fourth objective.

So as we settle down, after fighting over which game to do first, I finally give up and let him do Metal Gear Solid 2. So, we beat the game, and then we try Dynasty Warriors 3. It's decent, but I'd take Gauntlet Warriors to it. Finally he puts in Mirra 2. We immedietly go to proquest, and after scrolling through the characters, we pick Dave Mirra. So we try the first level. First objective was to score a certain amount of points. Both of us being experienced at the first Mirra, we did this easy, while wondering around the level. So far it seemed like a good game. We had just finished listening to Awake by Godsmack, probably the best track in the game.

We start over, and look at our new objectives. One of which was ''Knock over 4 ladders''. This made us suddenly stare at each other, wondering where they were. We had already gone through a good part of the level, and hadn't noticed any ladders. So we decide to work on this objective first. We also noticed the fourth objective was a bunch of question marks. So, not knowing what's up with that, we just go ahead and start searching for a ladder. Another three minute run, with nothing accomplished except having listened to another track. And, we try again.

So as we start this third run through the level, we decide to look through the track list. So far we hadn't had a problem. Godsmack and Rage Against the Machine, can't complain too much there. So we put it on a song by Gang Starr. Neither of us had heard of them or the song. We just picked it because we were hoping it might be some good rap. We run through the level again, and find two ladders, while we suffer with the horrible attempt at rap done by Gang Starr. Next we go again, and find the same two ladders. And we try another track by someone we'd never heard of. A Tribe Named Quest was the name.. Rather long and drawn out. After about twenty seconds we had to switch the track because it sounded so lame. We take another run at the place, and find a new ladder, and forget where one of the other ones was that we already knew of. Somewhere during these last few rounds, we found that there are other BMXers out here whom you have to find and talk to to gain that fourth objective from. By this time we were very ticked off that we couldn't find all the ladders. In all it took about seven runs to find all the ladders. The good thing about this is that we were able to hear all the tracks rather fast, because most of them were so horrible that we could easily decide ''Skip it.'' and move on.

So after yelling around several profanities, and about 25 minutes later, we had found and knocked over the four ladders. Hey, it was late, we both might as well of been on drugs we were so tired. You really can't blame us for taking that long. In all, this left us with a few specific thoughts, among some others. One of them a complaint of how the levels are so large and hard to find what you want. The next thought being a complaint of how you can accidentally ride out of the level, being an open boundary level system. Next complaint being how you had to search out some BMXer in this huge level to get an objective from. Last of all, a complaint about how about half the tracks were worse than listening to Hanson.

Shouldn't a sequel get better, not worse..?

The same control system is back from Mirra 1, a jump button, a grind button, and two trick buttons. But then, as you play the game, you'll notice a difference. There's much less tightness in the bike turning. Making it very easy to have a situation very similar to one I had that night of, ''Oh, I need to turn there and hit the.. Damn, I missed it. Turn around.. NO! QUIT TURNING! TURN BACK!! There.. NO! LEFT!! NO!! I JUST LOOPED AROUND THE DAMN LADDER AGAIN!!'' causing many frustrations through the night. It could have been tightened a bit and made much easier to turn.

I'm going to go ahead and adress the songs straight out. The soundtrack is half kickass, half suck. On one hand, you've got Godsmack with Awake, Ozzy Ozbourne with a live version of Paranoid, Rage Against the Machine with Wake Up, Sum 41 with Makes No Difference, and All My Fault by Fenix Tx. Then you've got the horribly lame songs, being Gang Starr with Moment of Truth(Featuring such lyrics as ''They love it, because they love to see your ass squirm like a worm.'', The Cult with She Sells Sanctuary, Hypocritical by Methods of Mayhem, Sublime with Doin' Time (It's probably the best of the worst songs.) and Buggin' Out by A Tribe Called Quest. A Tribe Called Quest?! What the hell kind of name is that?! Then again, I guess I could say the same about most bands. Still, it's such an odd name I couldn't help but mention it. Then there's an annoying glitch related to the music which occurs randomly. When pausing, and going to the option menu to change songs, sometimes it won't let you change the song to one direction or another, blocking you from accessing certain songs. Sometimes leaving you with only lame songs to listen to for a run. What horror this game brings.. The soundtrack in the first Mirra had me skipping two songs out of the whole selection. This was a true first for me, as usually in these games there are only a few songs that I like. But in the first Mirra, they hit it right on the ball for me. However in this, they totally changed the attitude of most of the music, featuring many styles of music as opposed to being much more focused on the first Mirra in style.

One of the most odd aspects of this is how that it isn't truly improved over the first Mirra, it's actually downgraded. Maybe not to some, but I found certain things too easy to do. The first Mirra made it a challenge to get a height from a jump of more than 35 feet usually. But this? Here you can get 40-50 feet easy if you're in a good half pipe. Another being the huge levels. I've noticed most people who have reviewed this so far enjoyed the huge atmosphere to the levels. Myself? I hated it. It can take so long to get to certain points that they had to make the runs three minutes as opposed to the usual two minutes that an extreme sports game usually gives you. So does it even it out? No. It doesn't take away the boring ride to somewhere, and then the attempts at accomplishing some incredibly difficult feat, just to waste the remaining two minutes having not accomplished a thing. Then you have to start over back at where you start, and take that infernal ride to the place. Again. The game goes on and on like this.

Another thing that I noticed was far too easy was grinding. Earlier today I pulled off 325 or so feet of grinding on the second level, a train station. How? Easy. I got a good running start, and started grinding. I jumped a lot, and I held the grind button the whole time. I could have kept going a bit more, too. But I was about to exit the level as it was, so I had to jump off. You don't fall over very fast in this. For some reason, you can balance on a grind like it's no difficulty. Hell, you have to go a long ways before you'll even feel a need to start re-adjusting your balance. Excuse me kind sir, but grinding is so easy that this part alone should make Dave Mirra cry that his name is in this garbage. Let alone the many other problems of the game.

One of the things I can say about this without making too many derogatory statements along with it is that the graphics are fairly good. I liked the look to it, the level looked real good. And the people didn't look retarded, like most people do in games. They actually look pretty good, with the proportions of the face done quite accurately.

It all breaks down..
Graphics: 7
Music:4 (Some of the horrible tracks in this game I've played for other people I know. They hated it too. Find me someone who actually likes the Gang Starr song.. Pfft.)
Fun: 4
Replay: 5
Overall: 4

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/07/02, Updated 06/07/02