FMX Riders is an off-road motocross arcade style racer. Offering a vast amount of content does it live up to what we originally thought about the title in our Preview.
The game features 4 modes, freestyle mode allows you to pull tricks on your bike to obtain a high score. Race mode is our obligatory expected mode whereby you race around a track competing against other players, the other two modes are time attack and hot lap. All modes are dished up within the World Circuit whereby you play 9 tours which is where these modes come into play. When you complete these tours you earn money which you can spend on opening a new tour to progress through the game.
In terms of difficulty this game gets very challenging on some of the later tours which is definitely a good thing for those who like a challenge. Speed ect of the bikes adds to this challenge with the rising amount of CC throughout. Because of the different modes within each tour variety is here so you don’t get bored. Performing tricks allows you to collect boosts which can be activated in any situation. Pulling of tricks is very fun and adds even more variety to the game.
A very neat feature FMX Riders allows you to do is play the game from your iPhone 4 or iPod touch 4th Gen directly onto your TV via component or composite cable. This works really well and shows a huge amount of potential for future games. It’s a shame you can’t use older devices to do this also.
The controls are very simple with auto acceleration and tilt controls set up as standard however you can steer with on screen controls. Braking is performed on screen and same goes for performing tricks and using your boosts. Overall I found the controls easy to use and get on with.
The graphics are obviously quite cartoony which defiantly looks good. Nice bright colors used on the bikes and players and the textures of terrains feels right at home. I especially liked the dessert and snow terrains, I thought they were well designed and got a lot of fun from riding around on them. The physics however needs some work, FMX Riders has the ability of performing tricks so a good physics engine behind this is essential. However there is not and this makes some landings very awkward.
The sound quality from the bikes is noisy and loud so thats spot on for motocross. Crash, pulling of tricks and boost sound effects are all done well also. Background music sounds really good and gets you in the right frame of mind also.
Overall FMX Riders is a huge amount of fun and offers a nice variety of things to do. With the addition of Game Center support for racing online this is one awesome game.
