Game Reviews

G-Bikes

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G-Bikes
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Thanks to the likes of WipEout and F-Zero, if the future doesn't include high-speed hover racing I'm going to be deeply disappointed.

There are bigger disappointments in this world, however, and one of them is G-Bikes.

This simple tunnel-racer manages to create a fantastic sense of speed. Unfortunately, it's also a horrible unfinished mess that doesn't not have the features it needs to make it competitive.

Can you feel the G's

G-Bikes is as simple as they come, and this is to its credit. Armed with a 'left' button and a 'right' button, you steer a futuristic vehicle as it shoots down a winding tunnel, dodging left and right to avoid obstacles and other racers.

As you reach insane speeds you can really feel the surrounding environment whipping by, and it looks brilliant in motion.

Some levels take place inside the tunnel, while others take place outside it, giving you a whole new perspective on past levels.

Not so G-nius

This is where the fun stops, unfortunately, as G-Bikes fails to demonstrate any other positive qualities.

Our main issue is that it feels unfinished, with plenty of design oddities. For instance, finish a race and you'll find yourself waiting at the results screen until you choose to hit the 'pause' button and quit.

The races themselves are quite confusing, too. No explanation is given as to how you speed up. After experimenting for a while we tentatively concluded that following the green bar that jumps around the tunnel makes you go faster, but even now we're not 100 per cent sure.

Credits are awarded when you complete a race, and you can use these to tune your vehicle. But whenever we visited the tuning screen it showed the wrong number of credits, which turned out to be immaterial as we were able to buy anything and everything regardless of how many credits we had.

Making the credit confusion all the more immaterial is the fact that it's difficult to tell exactly what difference they make, because they come without descriptions.

Finally, the races are unlocked in a very tedious manner. Beat the first track and you'll be awarded a reverse version of the track. Beat that and you then get to drive on the outside of the track. Beat that and you finally get to see a brand new track. It's not a progress mechanic that we see often, and for good reason.

There's also multiplayer thrown in, but we can't get it to work. The Market description claims that G-Bikes is currently in beta - again, a sign that the game was released a little too prematurely.

G-Bikes was perhaps a little too quick off the starting block, and the care and attention needed to make it something great is simply not there.

Hopefully the developer will pull it back, give the game the treatment it deserves, and release it again once it's properly finished.

G-Bikes

In its current state, G-Bikes isn't worth bothering with. It feels unfinished and broken
Score
Mike Rose
Mike Rose
An expert in the indie games scene, Mike comes to Pocket Gamer as our handheld gaming correspondent. He is the author of 250 Indie Games You Must Play.