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IGN Review of Biker Mice from Mars
For those of you too young to remember (or who had a better childhood than me), Biker Mice from Mars was a cartoon from the early '90s that was one of the many Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cash-ins. This is for the reason that kids seem to like animal people with skater/biker personalities who walk on two legs and use outdated slang (this would explain the Street Sharks). As silly and shameless as it was, I still liked these cartoons well enough. It was something to watch.
However, nostalgia for the Biker Mice has now been killed, buried, dug-up, and killed again. All because of this ... this ... "game." Namely, Biker Mice from Mars for the PS2. Apparently based on a new TV show (that is only showing in countries like the UK and Finland for now), this game is pure awfulness. Take everything you like in your life and flip it upside down -- that is this game. It is the opposite of fun. In fact, it's fun's enemy. The best possible use for this game is to buy hundreds of copies and mail it to developers so they can teach their interns about bad game design.
That is to say, I didn't like it.
The majority of the game takes place on a motorcycle; this is good considering that they are "biker" mice. You can pick one of three title Mice, each with slightly different attributes that don't really change anything, and you're on your way. Unfortunately, handling is terrible. You drive in a straight line down a very generic street (that you will see over and over again in every mission) and basically aim for powerups that grant you things like health or different missiles, mines, and other weapons. There's also a boost powerup that can supposedly make you jump in the air when you're pulling a wheelie. It's better if you don't try anything this fancy.
You see, the controls are a black hole of suck. The buttons were so unresponsive, I honestly thought my controller was broken (switching it out proved otherwise). Each button has to be pushed really hard to register anything and even this was inconsistent. And if you're foolish enough to actually want to shoot bad guys ... well, good luck. The aiming reticule jumps all over the place so you never really know what you're targeting. You also have weapons that can be deployed behind you, but you never know if or how they will connect. Of course, the bad guys don't seem to have this problem because everyone targets you with insane accuracy. Not to mention that there are mines everywhere on the road -- mines that you'll probably only notice after running over them.
There are other nuances to this terrible design. For instance, there's no reverse. A racing mode with no reverse. If you miss a powerup, tough luck. You can turn around in wide circles, but you're booted back to the right direction after a few seconds. This "no reverse" thing is even more of a killer during the arena style bike battles that pop up from time to time; you'll really miss the ability to drive backwards when you're fighting a horde of killer limos. There's also a special attack meter that can unleash "Mega-Bike" (not "The Mega-Bike"-- just "Mega-Bike"). I really don't know what this is supposed to do. It makes your bike twice as large but you still take damage, and it only lasts a few seconds. Not exactly worthy of the "Mega" name. At any rate, blowing things up makes bouncy gold coins fly out, and you can use these coins to upgrade your bike's weapons and stats between missions. This would be better if you could actually see or feel any kind of difference in the bike.
Inexplicably, this racing part is actually the better part of the game. There is also a "Brawl" mode that is supposed to be a 3D beat-em-up, but it's more like a 3D suck-it-up. Yes, the game is bad enough for me to make terrible jokes like that. The camera angle is fixed really low so you can never see where bad guys are coming from or if you're even hitting them. The controls here are probably even more unresponsive than the bike parts (if that's even possible), and the enemies block everything. One thing that should also be mentioned is that the vibration function is on steroids during Brawl. If you get punched just once, the controller will jump out of your hands like some kind of possessed frog -- I had to turn vibration off because I feared my controller might explode. Gameplay-wise, you're usually trapped in just one room where you kill everyone, and then you go to the next mission. Assuming the next mission loads; there was a time when I completed all objectives and the game wouldn't let me progress. Let's just say that you don't have to try very hard to break this game.
To be fair, the graphics are probably the highlight of the game, but that isn't saying much. There's a cel-shaded look that fits well with the cartoon, but everything is so generic it's hard to care. The voice-over work is pretty solid (I'm assuming they used the voices from the new TV show), although in-game voices get cut off very often. Even more hilarious are the cut scenes; multiple frames of animation were cut from all the characters so it looks like a slideshow of Fat Albert reruns. That's not a good thing.
©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
However, nostalgia for the Biker Mice has now been killed, buried, dug-up, and killed again. All because of this ... this ... "game." Namely, Biker Mice from Mars for the PS2. Apparently based on a new TV show (that is only showing in countries like the UK and Finland for now), this game is pure awfulness. Take everything you like in your life and flip it upside down -- that is this game. It is the opposite of fun. In fact, it's fun's enemy. The best possible use for this game is to buy hundreds of copies and mail it to developers so they can teach their interns about bad game design.
That is to say, I didn't like it.
The majority of the game takes place on a motorcycle; this is good considering that they are "biker" mice. You can pick one of three title Mice, each with slightly different attributes that don't really change anything, and you're on your way. Unfortunately, handling is terrible. You drive in a straight line down a very generic street (that you will see over and over again in every mission) and basically aim for powerups that grant you things like health or different missiles, mines, and other weapons. There's also a boost powerup that can supposedly make you jump in the air when you're pulling a wheelie. It's better if you don't try anything this fancy.
You see, the controls are a black hole of suck. The buttons were so unresponsive, I honestly thought my controller was broken (switching it out proved otherwise). Each button has to be pushed really hard to register anything and even this was inconsistent. And if you're foolish enough to actually want to shoot bad guys ... well, good luck. The aiming reticule jumps all over the place so you never really know what you're targeting. You also have weapons that can be deployed behind you, but you never know if or how they will connect. Of course, the bad guys don't seem to have this problem because everyone targets you with insane accuracy. Not to mention that there are mines everywhere on the road -- mines that you'll probably only notice after running over them.
There are other nuances to this terrible design. For instance, there's no reverse. A racing mode with no reverse. If you miss a powerup, tough luck. You can turn around in wide circles, but you're booted back to the right direction after a few seconds. This "no reverse" thing is even more of a killer during the arena style bike battles that pop up from time to time; you'll really miss the ability to drive backwards when you're fighting a horde of killer limos. There's also a special attack meter that can unleash "Mega-Bike" (not "The Mega-Bike"-- just "Mega-Bike"). I really don't know what this is supposed to do. It makes your bike twice as large but you still take damage, and it only lasts a few seconds. Not exactly worthy of the "Mega" name. At any rate, blowing things up makes bouncy gold coins fly out, and you can use these coins to upgrade your bike's weapons and stats between missions. This would be better if you could actually see or feel any kind of difference in the bike.
Inexplicably, this racing part is actually the better part of the game. There is also a "Brawl" mode that is supposed to be a 3D beat-em-up, but it's more like a 3D suck-it-up. Yes, the game is bad enough for me to make terrible jokes like that. The camera angle is fixed really low so you can never see where bad guys are coming from or if you're even hitting them. The controls here are probably even more unresponsive than the bike parts (if that's even possible), and the enemies block everything. One thing that should also be mentioned is that the vibration function is on steroids during Brawl. If you get punched just once, the controller will jump out of your hands like some kind of possessed frog -- I had to turn vibration off because I feared my controller might explode. Gameplay-wise, you're usually trapped in just one room where you kill everyone, and then you go to the next mission. Assuming the next mission loads; there was a time when I completed all objectives and the game wouldn't let me progress. Let's just say that you don't have to try very hard to break this game.
To be fair, the graphics are probably the highlight of the game, but that isn't saying much. There's a cel-shaded look that fits well with the cartoon, but everything is so generic it's hard to care. The voice-over work is pretty solid (I'm assuming they used the voices from the new TV show), although in-game voices get cut off very often. Even more hilarious are the cut scenes; multiple frames of animation were cut from all the characters so it looks like a slideshow of Fat Albert reruns. That's not a good thing.
©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved