Review #781: Biker Mice from Mars

 Rock and Ride!

 I'm a 90s kid, so I grew up with all of them anthropomorphic heroes. Sewer Sharks, Extreme Dinosaurs, Road Rovers, TMNT, Swat Cats, The Adventures of T-Rex, All My Monsters and, of course, Biker Mice from Mars. I wanted something to remember the show by, something like a videogame. Maybe I shouldn't have bothered.

 The game is modeled after the series 00's reboot and not the original series, but it doesn't matter too much since the main mice are pretty faithful to their original counterparts, although the same can't be said about the supporting cast. I'm not sure if the game follows the plot from its only season or what have you, but it's 15 short missions long in which you can play as any of the main characters. Surprisingly, there are a lot of voiced cutscenes, although the animation is a bit suspect, it's all jerky and stiff, something tells me they had an algorithm fill in between key frames.  Regardless, all 15 missions follow the same story thread, in which Ronaldo Rump(The original Trump detractor) and the Catatonias(Space Cats) team up and the Mice must stop them. Regardless, you'll know that something is up with this game, because after you create a file you get two options "New Game" or "Missions". Turns out New Game is actually "Create new file", and "Missions" is the game's only mode.

 The game has two modes: Driving and Beat'em up. Every single stage has a driving section, and if you're unlucky(Or lucky, if somehow you like the beat'em parts more) you'll get a very brief beat'em up section. Driving feels very cheap, like something out of a modern mobile phone game, while on-foot fighting is as lifeless as it gets, so pick your poison. During missions you can get coins that you can then spend on the 'garage' to upgrade your mice. Each character has their own set of combos to buy, although they are basically the same even though, at least, the animations are different, while on Bike the only thing that changes between characters are their base stats and how high you can upgrade them(Modo can get the most HP upgrades, Vinnie gets the most Boost upgrades and Throttle gets the most Maneuverability upgrades). The beat'em up sections are so simple and easy that you're better off upgrading everyone's bikes' health and upgrading its main weapon, since the driving stages are the only ones that matter. Most of the game is pretty easy, but the final mission was a nightmare, talk about a difficulty spike.

 Driving sections are usually about getting from point A to point B, you use your basic weapon with R1, which has a cooldown period, and you can pick up alternate, limited weapons from fallen enemies or spread throughout the race track. Driving is not completely awful, it just feels cheap, there aren't any thrills to be had in here. And there's no driving in reverse, if you hit a wall... just hit the accelerator and slowly turn away from the wall. Combat is just devoid of any fun, X is a weak attack, square is a strong attack and L1 blocks. You can purchase more combos in the store, but you don't really need them. Maybe one of the combos that ends on a wide-area covering move could be useful during the missions in which you have to protect something, but otherwise? Stick to bike upgrades. The camera in this sections are too zoomed in on the player character, and every time you hit something the camera jerks around which is very off putting. Landing hits doesn't feel very satisfying either, so it's not much fun.

 Biker Mice from Mars on PS2 is way below average, although I'll admit that a very sparse few times I had a teeny tiny bit of fun blasting enemies on my bike, but the very few and rather low highest points can't save this game.
 3.0 out of 10