BMX Simulator - Atari ST (Let''s Play & Opinion)

Channel:

Village Monk's Gaming Memories

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Published on December 28, 2016 5:33:29 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ydq9ifxzLo

Game:

BMX Simulator (1986)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 7:43

234 views

5

FYI: Unfortunately I stupidly lost all of the footage that I had of BMX Simulator running on an actual Atari ST moving between hard drives. So this is emulated via Steem. The only difference between this and the actual disk running on an ST is the ECS text and logo appearing on the screen. I could have re-recorded it again but I really did not want to go through the hassle as I don't feel like playing this again.

There's a simulator game for everything these days, some of them are good and some of them are like BMX Simulator. I received this in a 4 pack called Quattro Sports, I don't know if it was available separately, but I would hope that it was a budget release and no-one had bought this for full price. It was originally produced for the Commodore 64 by Codemasters and the Oliver Twins who would go on to make the Dizzy games. The twins also made the ports for the Amstrad and Spectrum. It would later come for the Amiga, Atari 8 bit family, MSX as well as this ST version.

BMX Simulator is a 1-2 player overhead racer where you control a cycle over a series of race tracks where the simple objective is to beat your opponent in a 1 on 1 race. As with standard BMX dirt tracks there are banks, jumps and hazards all over the course. One nice feature is that it has a replay mode which allows you to relish in your victory, however if you played this then you probably wouldn’t want to.

Graphically the sprites are small, there's no scrolling so the track takes up the full screen and therefore this results in a definite lack of detail. It just looks rather bland. There's also very little in the way of presentation throughout with only a few sound effects and a lack of music.

But the visuals aren't even the worst part of the game, I don't know how you can call this a BMX simulator, I never once think of this as being an accurate representation of how a BMX cycle feels. To move forward you have to hold down the fire button on the joystick and turn by pressing left and right, but it is so stiff in the turning that more often than not you will crash into the scenery. There are numerous collision detection problems with the environment with you sometimes thinking that you will have enough space to get past only for your rider to frustratingly fall off his bike. It also doesn’t help that your CPU rival seems to never have any problems. Plus if you come into contact with him such as if he goes straight through you from behind, he doesn’t get penalised at all, you get knocked off your bike and he carries on as if he was swatting a fly.

Overall BMX Simulator is not a good simulator, it plays terribly and is just not that fun. I know the Speccy version tends to get a bit of praise and I would hope that this is a case of a bad port, I just can’t stand this one.

If you're interested in seeing more retro or current game videos then feel free to subscribe or check out some of my playlists:
Atari ST: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzF1WNCk2yjFs9SNEZUf6o3
Sega Mega Drive: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfzY6iR6W6cRsFRt7zUlgHIE
Sega Master System: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfySbjh71hXweL28cqu-DbR5
Windows PC: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx4xxIIv8AfxkkqPP6dWcSarH94BPrbvr

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