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varidogDescenders is a downhill mountain bike game. How cool is that? It was outside my normal play style, but I gave it a go anyway, with my best sporting spirit.
You go downhill mountain biking through randomly created tracks. Everybody's going at their own pace. If you complete a track, you get an option to go to the next track, all over the mountain, where you get to ride more. When it comes to focus, the designers go this right. It's all downhill all the time.
Since I'm not into mountain biking, almost all of this was new to me, so there was a learning curve. In game, there's no place more dangerous than the beginning tutorial area. When I got started, I wiped out so quickly and so often that I began howling in laughter. That humor helped. In this game, you will wipe out, and when learning to do things, wipe out often. You need to get comfortable with that. Wiping out is also the only penalty that there is.
As you do things you earn rep, and as you earn rep, you get gear, transforming yourself from a generic beginner into a colorful rider. You can also get sponsored by a team and get their team colors. I was a nutcase on cross country enough that I got the green uniform.
For my setup, I discovered that my controller way too twitchy. I'd throw myself off the path for at every maneuver, and even touching the brakes sent me flying over the handlebars. (This made me ask why my bike only has a front wheel brake.) I eventually found a better setting under the Steam options for that particular game, which helped, but even that was still too sensitive. In this type of game, the lack of an in-game controller adjustment is a significant omission.
I went way too fast early on, but I eventually learned to go slower, which helped. The best way that I found to go slower was to turn off the music. I could then hear the bike clicking.
I enjoyed the music, but they didn't nearly give me enough. More please.
Another thing that helped my control was changing into first person mode. With that, some of my real life bicycling skills kicked in.
I felt no sense of mass or inertia, which is usual for a racing game, an always presents as a problem. I also felt no sense of tire grip, which also messed with my head. I believe that their controls are linear, not on curves.
I found the stunt system rather annoying, and I eventually stopped attempting stunts because I crashed so early and often. They definitely need a better method for teaching the players how to do the various stunts. If the designers did include a method, beyond the tutorial, they didn't communicate it very well.
I found that the game punished you for going too fast, but it also punished you for not going fast enough, and there were some obstacles, like jumping over racks, that routinely got me. No matter how fast I went, I didn't go fast enough, even when I was going out of control fast. There had to be a method, but I never worked that out.
I eventually made it to the next area, so yay for me. I learned a little something.
Unfortunately, my eyes began bothering me. I can't do fast or twitchy games for very long before my eye sockets complain. That means that I can't do this game very much, which is a shame. It's a fun casual game once you get going.
If you like the feel of racing and going fast, but you don't actually like the structure of competing, this is an enjoyable game. It's a bit specialized, and has its rough edges, but it seems to get the most important parts right.
You go downhill mountain biking through randomly created tracks. Everybody's going at their own pace. If you complete a track, you get an option to go to the next track, all over the mountain, where you get to ride more. When it comes to focus, the designers go this right. It's all downhill all the time.
Since I'm not into mountain biking, almost all of this was new to me, so there was a learning curve. In game, there's no place more dangerous than the beginning tutorial area. When I got started, I wiped out so quickly and so often that I began howling in laughter. That humor helped. In this game, you will wipe out, and when learning to do things, wipe out often. You need to get comfortable with that. Wiping out is also the only penalty that there is.
As you do things you earn rep, and as you earn rep, you get gear, transforming yourself from a generic beginner into a colorful rider. You can also get sponsored by a team and get their team colors. I was a nutcase on cross country enough that I got the green uniform.
For my setup, I discovered that my controller way too twitchy. I'd throw myself off the path for at every maneuver, and even touching the brakes sent me flying over the handlebars. (This made me ask why my bike only has a front wheel brake.) I eventually found a better setting under the Steam options for that particular game, which helped, but even that was still too sensitive. In this type of game, the lack of an in-game controller adjustment is a significant omission.
I went way too fast early on, but I eventually learned to go slower, which helped. The best way that I found to go slower was to turn off the music. I could then hear the bike clicking.
I enjoyed the music, but they didn't nearly give me enough. More please.
Another thing that helped my control was changing into first person mode. With that, some of my real life bicycling skills kicked in.
I felt no sense of mass or inertia, which is usual for a racing game, an always presents as a problem. I also felt no sense of tire grip, which also messed with my head. I believe that their controls are linear, not on curves.
I found the stunt system rather annoying, and I eventually stopped attempting stunts because I crashed so early and often. They definitely need a better method for teaching the players how to do the various stunts. If the designers did include a method, beyond the tutorial, they didn't communicate it very well.
I found that the game punished you for going too fast, but it also punished you for not going fast enough, and there were some obstacles, like jumping over racks, that routinely got me. No matter how fast I went, I didn't go fast enough, even when I was going out of control fast. There had to be a method, but I never worked that out.
I eventually made it to the next area, so yay for me. I learned a little something.
Unfortunately, my eyes began bothering me. I can't do fast or twitchy games for very long before my eye sockets complain. That means that I can't do this game very much, which is a shame. It's a fun casual game once you get going.
If you like the feel of racing and going fast, but you don't actually like the structure of competing, this is an enjoyable game. It's a bit specialized, and has its rough edges, but it seems to get the most important parts right.
