Pumped BMX’ Review – Putting Simulation In Your Side Scrolling Racer

‘Pumped BMX’ Review – Putting Simulation In Your Side Scrolling Racer
Pumped: BMX at first appears to be another side-scrolling bike racer, but I would label it as more of a BMX simulator than anything else.

at first appears to be another side-scrolling bike racer, but I would label it as more of a BMX simulator than anything else.  Yes, I am seriously calling a 2D game on a touch screen device with a cartoon art style a simulator. I challenge you to try it out before you dismiss me. Or better yet, take it straight from the developer. Adam Hunt, the mastermind behind Pumped: BMX, is a BMX rider himself who brought his passion to iOS by creating a BMX game that would mimic his own experience on a bike.

While I still consider Pumped: BMX a side-scrolling bike racer, the only similarities are that you’re going from left to right on a bike. Outside of that, Pumped: BMX requires true technical finesse in order to complete the game. I would even go so far as to say that those who have ridden BMX, or at least know what it takes to properly ride slopes, will have an advantage while playing this game.

Pumped: BMX features four different locations to ride in, as well as the tutorial level. These areas are the Backyard, The Farm, Desert, and Big City. Each of these locations is essentially just a different backdrop with the trails becoming progressively harder to master. From the locations I was able to explore, each of the areas had 8 levels within them. There’s not many levels overall, and they don’t tend to differ very much as they don’t add different gameplay mechanics as you progress.

What Pumped: BMX lacks in diversity is made up for by its longevity. If you think you’ll be able to finish it in a day you are very mistaken. As I said before, this game plays like a simulator that is sticking strictly to the core essentials without going overboard. It’s the perfect amount of simulator mixed with simple gameplay mechanics for the iOS platform.

The controls in Pumped: BMX are simple, on the right side you have the spin button which is used in correlation with the gyroscope to do flips, and the pump button which is a physical technique used when riding smoothly over hills. There is no pedal button in the game, instead the pump button is used to initially get the rider to pedal down the first hill, but after that is only used to properly ride the trails.

Just like in real life, riding BMX trails properly is less about peddling and more about pumping. The game uses this real life technique by releasing the pump button as you reach the peak of a jump and timing the press again when coming in for a landing to set you off at the right speed for your next jump. It’s a simple technique, but is very hard to master in conjunction with tilting.

The other key gameplay mechanic that goes hand in hand with pumping at the right time is the use of the iPad or iPhone’s gyroscope. The use of the gyroscope not only controls whether you move clockwise or counter clockwise, but these movements decide how far up you’ll go, and how fast you’ll fall forward depending on how you position your rider in the air.

Nailing a smooth landing and continuing your flow throughout the level is key in completing it. As soon as you clip a flat piece of land with your back tire as you’re going down a slope, your entire flow is ruined and will result in it being nearly impossible to get enough speed for the next jump. Thankfully there’s a restart button located at the top left corner of the screen. Get used to it; you’ll be using it a lot.

Outside of nailing a perfect flow is pulling off tricks. Your left hand will control a joystick button which pulls off different tricks depending on which direction you move it to. Pulling off tricks is not nearly as hard as mastering the slopes. As long as you have enough air, just flicking your thumb in any of the eight directions will give you a different trick such as a barspin, superman grab, or tailwhip.  The grab tricks can be held until the user lets go where as a barspin is pressed and has a short timer until it is completed.

Overall I felt like the difficulty of Pumped: BMX amped up out of nowhere about 25% of the way into the game. Just as an example, the previous area I got a 100% completion while in the latter levels I found there was absolutely no room for error. Forget about beating the high score or nailing certain tricks, I had a hard enough time just getting to the end of the level.  Simply completing a stage won’t be enough to unlock other locations though. The game requires the user to collect stars by completing certain goals.

Pumped: BMX’s progression system relies on both the trick and slope riding aspect. Each level comes with 4 stars that can be earned by simply making it to the end, pulling off a specific trick, or having a total number of points in one trick, or overall at the end of your run. Pulling off tricks and doing flips was fun, but I found myself not even using the trick mechanic once I got into the harder levels. Pumping is a difficult task on its own, and throwing in tricks doesn’t help when all you’re trying to do is make it over the one hill you keep failing at.

What got me through landing on my face continuously and maintaining my cool was the simple and charming art style. Each level is clean, colorful, and highly detailed in all the right areas without distracting the player from the gameplay. The music and sound effects tend to play off of the light hearted art style and create an even more relaxing atmosphere.

With such an aesthetically pleasing game it would’ve been nice to have some sort of unlockables such as different BMX bikes, or player models. Even if they didn’t affect the actual gameplay, it would at least add to the longevity of the game or keep the player’s attention when trying to unlock enough stars to get to the next area. Pumped: BMX does feature Game Center integration and includes 16 achievements for those who are up to the challenge.

When it comes down to it Pumped: BMX sets itself apart from the side-scrolling racer genre with its simulation of riding an actual BMX bike. This same design choice may deter potential players with its high level of difficulty and lack of unlockables giving the player less of a reason to keep playing when they’re stuck at a difficult spot. The art style and sound combined with having a perfect run feels great, but is a rare feeling after you complete the first area.

For those who enjoy BMX or are looking for a truly difficult side-scrolling racer, you can pick up Pumped: BMX on the App Storetoday.

[review pros=”Sets itself apart from the genre, clean high quality art design” cons=”High difficulty level without a reward based system may keep players from coming back, lack of other modes of play” score=70]