Gravity Games Bike: Street Vert Dirt (PlayStation 2)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 0.5 stars Abysmal
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 1.7 (0.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Jeff Gerstmann
• Reviewed on: 07/10/2002
• Released on: 06/27/2002
• Originally published on GameSpot: Gravity Games Bike: Street Vert Dirt (PlayStation 2) Review

Every time a trendsetting game is released to critical and commercial acclaim, a bevy of also-rans and clones are bound to follow. This isn't anything new. More often than not, the clones are uninspired rehashes of existing concepts, yet at least they usually manage to be competently done. Midway's latest sports game, Gravity Games: Street Vert Dirt, bucks this trend by being an absolutely unplayable piece of trash that looks, sounds, and plays like it was shipped about six months too early. If you avoid only one awful game this year, Gravity Games is the one to miss.

Like Mat Hoffman's Pro BMX or Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX, Gravity Games puts you in the role of a BMX biker and gives you a handful of levels to ride around in. Most of the levels have goals that must be accomplished to unlock later levels. Goals in this game include the obligatory score-based tasks, as well as collecting items--in this case, each level has letters throughout it that, when collected, eventually spell the word "gravity." There are also level-specific goals, such as breaking 10 lights by grinding on them or freeing a "chick" who has been tied to a set of train tracks. Other levels are competition-based, and you simply must score highly with the judges to earn a medal and proceed. You are allowed to replay each level as many times as you like, but you can only play in three-minute chunks.

On paper, it sounds like just another clone of the other alternative sports games. But the execution is where Gravity Games loses all of its points. The control scheme is a bit like that in the Dave Mirra games, in principle. One button is used for doing tricks, while another can be used to modify those tricks, turning supermans into one-handed supermans and so on. But the control in this game is so insanely stiff that it's difficult to jump at the right time, let alone effectively do tricks. The timing on the trick modifiers is seemingly split-second--you'll have to bust out the modifier move almost instantaneously after performing the base trick. Grinds and stalls are stupidly easy to balance, and the game's trick system actually rewards you for doing one trick over and over again, meaning the easiest way to score points is to merely stall the bike on a lip and continually jump up and down, landing a lip trick each time. By the time you've done this seven or eight times, the points will be counting up at a ridiculous speed, and the balancing act is so easy to maintain that you could easily just rack up points for the entire three minutes of your run, achieving both score goals and the overly ambiguous "land a sick trick" goal all at once. The game has manuals, which, if done properly, will let you string tricks together and extend combos, but the timing on the manuals is also a complete mess. The game's one not-so-weak point is that it has pretty large levels. Unfortunately, the level designers forgot to include items to ride and trick off of, giving most levels a cavernous, empty feel.

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Gravity Games Bike: Street Vert Dirt (PlayStation 2): $17.95 - $19.99

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GamesDirectOnline	$17.95	No

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