Bike Mayhem 2 is a downhill racing game that is very similar to the Trials series. You start on a BMX bike and must complete each trail with at least one star, designated by having a certain time or amount of skill points, to pass. Completing specific levels also unlocks rewards such new helmets or better suspension for your bike. This is exactly the type of game that I used to play on my computer as a kid, and while it was fun, I found myself wishing that it had a lot more variety.
The gameplay overall is enjoyable, however performing tricks on your bike is not. A lot of trails are based on whether you can perform tricks to acquire a set amount of points. To do so, you must simply move your right thumbstick in any direction to perform a trick once you are in the air. Each direction has an established trick. The only “skill” that you need to perform it correctly is good timing. Once you start a trick you have no control over it, and you must wait for your character to essentially auto-complete it before they hit the ground. This game is most likely meant for younger people, but it would have been nice to have the freedom to fully control my character. The beginning trails just became a game of me slightly tilting my left thumbstick back and forth to maintain balance because tricks were so boring to perform.
Another thing that I didn’t like was the use of a suspension system on your bike. There is a meter at the top left of the screen which gauges how much of an impact your bike absorbed. If the meter goes fully red, then you will wreck your bike and start back at a previous checkpoint. It’s realistic to have in the game, but it also made it more frustrating. I would have rather the developers just cut that feature altogether.
Although the tracks look great visually, there isn’t enough variety to them. The art style seems like someone speed painted an outdoors background. It’s a nice look, but it gets old when I constantly see it all of the time. Many of the tracks are variations of a forest in different seasons, like fall or spring. A majority are also incredibly easy. The tracks obviously increase in difficulty the further you progress, but most could be beaten in a matter of a few tries. Multiple tracks are eerily similar and only feature a few hills and jumps before the finish line. Having a more diverse amount of trails would have improved the game greatly.
There is an online multiplayer mode, which I had hoped could spark some more life into this game. Sadly, it didn’t. You aren’t playing with any players live. Instead, what you are doing is racing against their ghost. Choosing a quick match finds another player and sets you up on a random track. Once you complete it, you can send your challenge score or time to the other player and wait for their response. For something that is supposed to be competitive, I didn’t feel any urgency to finish a track as quickly as possible. Without having other players racing alongside me at the same time, I had no incentive to do my best.
There is a section where you can play user generated mountains, which contain multiple tracks, but most of them are dreadfully dull. There was even a track where I continued to hold the right trigger, and did nothing else, to pass the level. The track was basically a flat surface with a few bumps and hills. This feature could have been great, but you need to slog through some boring maps to find any gems. People can rate the maps that they play, but they were not organized in a user-friendly manner. Luckily, downloading a new mountain takes a matter of seconds, and they can be just as quickly deleted as well.
Going into the menu to create a map, I could see why they were so plain. You didn’t have a lot of options. There were not a lot of available props to use, like ramps. The best part was that you could choose to add terrain anywhere and shape it how you wanted. If you were really creative, you could probably make some impressive tracks, however you are still limited by what your bike is capable of. Which isn’t much. The limitations of what your bike could do is what really hindered any creativity when creating tracks.
Summary
If I was playing Bike Mayhem 2 ten or so years ago, I would have thought it was fantastic. Unfortunately, I’m playing it in 2016, and a simple game like this could have been done much better. Many downhill racing games have evolved with the times, offering newer and unique content you wouldn’t see years ago, but Bike Mayhem 2 seems to be stuck in the past. It’s the bare-bones of what I wanted the game to be. Still, for all of its faults, I think that people will find it enjoyable. I realize that I might not be the title’s target audience. I wanted something with a little more difficulty and much more variety, but for $6.99, Bike Mayhem 2 offers just enough content to satisfy its customers. This is something that would be great for children looking for a game that is entertaining and easy. It’s a basic game, but it’s not broken.
Jennifer is a games journalist, former games journalist and PR Manager at Gearbox. They contributed 234 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: went on to write for Windows Central and later managed PR for Gearbox Software.