Retro Reviews from Memory
Welcome to a new segment where I review my favorite childhood games from memory, go back and play the game. Then revise my opinion because, let’s face it, some of those games from the 80’s and 90’s just don’t hold up. The Score above is provisional. I’ll be back (probably, maybe, like… solid 25% chance)* after I play the game again and write a new review and link it to this post.
Enough of the preamble… on with the review!
This game is an absolute banger. I think it got yanked from shelves because the animation of the unicycle matched some 3d animation studios intro and the makers of the game lost the copyright suit. I’ve done zero fact checking on that though. I just remember it being really hard to find after a certain point despite being such a great game. Since there was never a sequel, I have to believe there was some tomfuckery afoot.
In any case, you race, as a unicycle, against the computer or head to head against friends. The fun, innovative, mechanic was if you landed tricks you could increase your speed. Forward roll, backward roll, z somersaults, pancake (maybe it was tabletop or flat top), all sorts of tricks were at your disposal. Learning when to use them, and when to brake strategically, was what kept the game fun.
It was also a great tournament / party game with friends. You could create tournament brackets with up to 16(?) unis and, unlike mario kart, the tournaments were balanced between being good at the tracks and being good at the tricks. This kept everyone playing on a pretty level playing field. Some people were naturally better at one or the other, but the speed loss when you blow a trick was hard to come back from on a track. More advanced “tricksters” often fell victim to their own risk/reward system when trying to eek out 1 more speed boost while more conservative players could take first by capitalizing on those moments… but when they got the lead they would need to take some risks to keep it.
Disclaimer(s)
*We should probably keep in mind that, when I was a kid, we didn’t have much money for games. Where others may have experienced the “rent before you buy” phenomena… that wasn’t really a thing in our house. I saved up babysitting money for an entire summer to buy the SNES. If we were doing well, I might get a single game for Christmas or my birthday, but they were almost always used from the swap meet or new from the discount bin. We didn’t have gamestop or many used game store options at the time. In any case, a LOT of my historical game memories are based on a rental window period that had to align with money, time (I had school, sports, occasionally a girlfriend, and a few part time jobs to juggle with my gaming habit), and whether my save file still existed when i rented the game a second time (assuming it was even available). Some games I didn’t play in their entirety until I got to college and had a tiny bit more money and a teensy bit fewer obligations. Which is to say, these reviews are patchwork at best. But let me know in the comments if you want me to replay any of these games and do a revised opinion review!
