Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX 2 review (GameCube)

Beyond the nice-looking level textures, the rest of Pro BMX 2 looks pretty good, though the game has a slightly blurry look to it in general. The various costumes are cool and occasionally pretty funny. The riders move very well, and their animation is full of realistic nuances, such as wobbling a bit when you just barely land a trick. The game also has its share of FMV, most of which was shot by Activision during a real-life road trip on which the game's riders drove around, getting into trouble. Each rider has his own collection of clips. Mat Hoffman's seem to focus on how he's constantly wrecking his bike and getting injured. The game mirrors this pretty well, as the crash animations are suitably painful looking. It's too bad the GameCube version of the game displays most of its FMV in a small, blurry window that doesn't seem to quite match the proportions of a standard television, and as a result the videos all look a little too wide.

The first Mat Hoffman had an eclectic soundtrack that managed to collect a lot of great songs while covering a lot of ground from a genre standpoint. The second soundtrack attempts to duplicate that success by culling its tracks from a variety of genres and eras. A total of 20 tracks from bands and artists such as Dub Pistols, Bombfunk MCs, Ice T, LL Cool J, and Suicidal Tendencies are included. While it carries on the genre mixing of the first game, the soundtrack simply don't mesh together as well as the first game's did. You can edit the playlist to turn off tracks that don't suit your fancy.

The first Mat Hoffman game essentially cloned the Tony Hawk games. This new entry, however, seems like it was designed to cater to the Dave Mirra crowd. The main focus is the flatland tricks, which look nice but really don't bring a lot to the table from a gameplay perspective. In the end, this game can be recommended only to die-hard action sports fans who won't mind the game's almost clinical approach to its level, goal, and gameplay design. Anyone looking for a game with a little more soul would be better served by Aggressive Inline or Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3.