Today I am checking out PIPE by BMX Streets which was actually released in 2018. From what I understand this game is a kind of first step to a grander BMX game that the team hopes to get out there. As someone who loved the Matt Hoffman and Dave Mirra games, it is about time we got a good and fun BMX game.
How to Download PIPE by BMX Streets
You can download the game from Steam. To do so, click on the Download button that is located below this review.
The Game Review
There is no actual story or challenge mode in this game. It is more about getting on your bike and learning tricks and mastering the few courses that there are. It is a very bare-bones game in terms of its content, but there is something here that kept me playing even though I was not really working towards anything.
I do wish at the very least there was a high-score system at play here as that I think would have been pretty awesome. In many ways, the game is kind of like a demo more than a full game. You can get trophies/achievements and that to me is all that you are really working towards.
The gameplay of PIPE by BMX Streets is what this game is all about. They have tried to make the physics as good as possible and they are pretty damn solid. Pulling off tricks is much more complex than it was back in the day in the Matt Hoffman and Dave Mirra games. It is not bad; it just takes a while to get the hang of as pulling off some tricks can take many different button presses.
What you really have to get the hang of is landing. You have to be pretty spot on or you will crash. This rings true for grinding too, these are skills that you have to master, but once you do playing the game gives you a kind of Zen-like experience and it can be quite relaxing.
One area of the game that I find incredibly frustrating is when you clip anything in the game, you crash. I get that they are going for a more realistic approach to this game, but crashing because one pixel touched the side of the ramp is very annoying. This is something I hope they fix when they make their next game.
I think the problem I had when I started the game was that I was trying to play it like one of those older games I have already mentioned. A better example is that this is not like Tony Hawk (I know skating is a different thing) it is more like Skate in that it is fun, but it is going for a more realistic kind of feel.
If you are a fan of BMX games or even if you enjoyed riding a BMX back in the day, I am sure you will have fun with PIPE by BMX Streets. It is a game that is not super easy to get into, but the bones for a game that is special are here. I played the PS4 version of the game and from what I have seen this version looks better than the PC one. I look forward to what these guys do next with this engine.
