Reviews// American Chopper

So really, the problem is more about what’s not contained within American Chopper than what is. Perhaps this game would have benefited from a full-price selling point and a few more months in development, because with a bit more creative design, what’s here could be turned into something distinctly more entertaining. The developers seem to have put plenty of work in, in terms of general appearance and the overall setting, so the fact that it hasn’t come together at all well barely seems fair. When we first started playing the game, we had nothing but high hopes: the GTA exploration element seemed enticing and the interlinking TV show/bike-building cut scenes seemed sufficiently novel. But the game fizzles out so quickly that you can’t but help feel cheated.

American Chopper is hardly the biggest franchise in the UK so this may well never see a PAL release and, for a change, we’re quite happy about that. Although American Chopper will be selling to fans of the TV series in the US, those unfamiliar with the show over here might not realise that this is actually a shameless cash-in and so fall victim to the ‘big shiny bike’ factor that makes this look like a half-decent investment. Really, it’s not. It could just about be described as fun up until about the hour-and-a-half mark, but if you actually intend to play through until the end you will quickly find it a chore. Sure, this is an approximate mix of Burnout 3 and GTA with massive one-off choppers, but somewhere along the line all the fun fell off and crumpled into a ditch. There aren’t any variants on the main mission mode, bar the ability to replay unlocked missions, and in all likelihood you won’t even bother to chug through the main story mode anyway.

Hopefully there’s still scope left in the Discovery-Activison licensing agreement, because we do think that the idea of TV documentary games is an interesting one. However, perhaps the concept needs to be treated with a little more dignity before it bears fruit. It would take a fairly imaginative team of designers to make a game truly reminiscent of a documentary; and in this instance, the name has been used simply as a marketing tool to squeeze a few extra bucks from a tired racing game. Shame.

SPOnG Rating: D

This is an interesting game in theory, but in practise, it’s excruciatingly dull. Racing games are built to excite and this doesn’t. The customisation options are supposed to be the selling point and yet they are entirely hollow and thusly pointless. It might seem passable to the most casual of gamers, but while it remains an import-only title, it’s out of reach anyway. For discerning SPOnG readers, rest assured: you can’t have it, but it’s not cool, so be glad.