I love the studio Neversoft and their Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games. These games make skateboarding even cooler than it already is (didn't know it was possible). They're full of love for the sport and street culture. The gameplay is brilliant too: all the possible tricks synergize perfectly to create amazing combos. The levels are well designed and encourage players to create their own routes. There are tons of linking tricks to build up absurd combos. The scoring system is one of my favorites: tricks give you points, each time you perform a new trick, it adds one to the multiplier. If you repeat a trick during the same combo, the multiplier still increases, but you earn fewer points for that move. The score is only validated at the end of your combo, so the longer you keep it going, the more likely you are to rack up a huge score, but you also risk falling and losing everything.
I discovered Street Uni X at A MAZE in Berlin, and the second I saw the trailer (imo the best trailer), I knew I wanted to play it. An indie Tony Hawk-like featuring a unicycle instead of a skateboard: what a promise! And just like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater — maybe even more so — Street Uni X is truly dedicated to the sport it represents. The tricks are authentic, the playable characters are real, there are video clips at the start of the game, and you can even receive text messages from the street unicycling world champion thanking players for playing the game! The creator of the game is also a skilled rider and talk directly to you through your in-game cell phone.
Everything I said about how well-designed Tony Hawk’s games are is also true for Street Uni X. Plus, unicycling changes the way you build combos and approach levels. There are no half-pipes or clearly defined “combo zones” within the levels. Instead, figuring out your own scoring routes is more challenging, and also much more interesting and rewarding than in Tony Hawk’s. I had to pull off Wall Taps, ride backward, alternate grinding from the right and left pedals, and use more in-place tricks to keep my combos going. I was truly happy to play not a clone, but a great game that builds on what Neversoft did twenty years ago.
Street Uni X: