Four wheels good, two wheels bad: why are there no exciting cycling games? | Dominik Diamond

www.theguardian.com

I’ve been playing Wheel World. It’s silly hipster fun, but I’d rather get on my real bike and ride. Where are the cycling equivalents of Crazy Taxi or Road Rash?

Games @lemmy.world

Davriellelouna @lemmy.world

1w ago

Four wheels good, two wheels bad: why are there no exciting cycling games?

www.theguardian.com /games/2025/aug/29/wheel-world-why-no-exciting-cycling-games

21 comments

ITT absolutely nobody talking about the gem that is Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX.
Awesome game, like a Tony Hawk game but with BMXs. It has a great soundtrack too :-)
- The literal only thing I can remember about that game is that the GameCube version has uncensored boobies in video clips of exotic dancers. And that Nintendo made the decision to not censor it because they were still reeling from being vastly outsold by Sega two console generations earlier on the original release of Mortal Kombat because they censored the blood and fatalities.
  
  I had it on Dreamcast, spent a lot of time on it :-)
- Great game but very old.
There was that PS2 era game where you could even kick people and throw water bottles at other riders. Iirc it was even rated M.
A good mix of calm and hectic, I play Lonely Mountains: Downhill from time to time and have some good fun. Looks like they have a skiing game now too.
- Descenders can be fun too, but it would be great to have a really solid micromobility heavy open world game.
I really thought there was a GBA game with bicycles where you had to land tricks in a set amount of time for points, but I'm probably just remembering a Tony Hawk skateboarding game Edit: I could also just be remembering Boom Boom Huckjam
In order to be appealing in a game, you need a sense of speed and bikes just don't scream "speed" to me.
Jet Moto was excellent back in the day, but Jet Skis, not bikes.
https://youtu.be/hpcHrauq_kg
Article references Jet Set Radio, but again, skates, not bikes.
You'd need, I dunno, some equivalent of Wipeout but with bikes instead of hovercraft.
- Jet Set Radio but bike couriers in NYC would be cool.
  
  Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a spiritual successor to JSR, and while I'm not sure if it's base game content, it has steam workshop support for custom movesets, including bikes, monowheel things, and skateboards.
It's not strictly cycling, but bikes are one of the choices in Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
- I just picked that up actually, haven't had a chance to play it yet.
Damn, they did refrence Animal Farm subtly in this article, did they?