There are two directions that all things deemed ‘controversial’ in the media and that generate a lot of hype seem to go in when it comes to the game industry: one where the product transcends what makes it controversial and the one where the final product lacks anything of substance that makes it worth having talked about in the first place. While the makers of BMX XXX like to cite the likes of GTA3 as examples of successful “mature” games they were hoping to join ranks with apparently the people who cobbled this title together walked away from such games having learned little. Offering up bits of nudity, profanity, and grade school potty humor aplenty, XXX is an odd title without a direction or, arguably, an audience.

Before going into the core of what makes the game distinctive and how that does or doesn’t work, it is important to cover the other bases. As an extreme sport stunt-based title XXX actually isn’t too horrible, though it is certainly outshined by the upper echelon of titles in the genre. The environments are varied and offer some opportunities to mix things up and have some fun. The stunt system is generally adequate, though more limited than in some other titles. You can do various airborne or ground-based stunts with point totals increasing as you successfully chain together a variety of moves. One gameplay-based failing here though is that some of the missions you’ll be sent on, aside from being juvenile or plain bizarre, are either not well explained or involve a great deal of hit and miss. While some titles have gone out of their way a bit to keep objectives in context or at least relatively common sense-based XXX sometimes gives you an order and no clue as to what you’re supposed to do. While this isn’t crippling for the title it is probably worth keeping in mind.

Beginning to get into the issues that are beyond the gameplay, and that have the biggest impact on the success or failure of this title in particular because of its marketing, the best place to start is with its looks. First, while it could be considered novel to be able to see a girl riding a bike topless or just shy of fully naked there isn’t much more to it than novelty. Here is a short laundry list of why a naked female biker doesn’t work well:

• The fact that your rider is seen from the back the vast majority of the time in third-person view

• The fact that even when you can see your rider from the front she is riding a bike and has her hunchback look going

• The fact that polygon boobs, while normally not very attractive to begin with, in this game look really fake/freaky/nasty/insert negative adjective here

Honestly in terms of attractiveness sometimes it is better to leave something to the imagination and BMX XXX gives a prime example. While having bikers only in pasties may have not generated so much stir, sadly enough it is a much better overall look.

Then, of course, there is the video of Scores strippers taking it off… well, some of it at least. Let’s begin with video quality. The footage looks like it was copied off of a copy of an older Super 8 tape or something. Granted, it may have been intentionally shot this way, maybe to emphasize the gritty reality of the cruel modern world where men pay to see women exploit their bodies for cold hard cash… nah, it just looks low budget. The real shame though is that they have strippers, they have an M rating, they’re set up to truly piss off the conservative community, and yet it is totally squandered. Hurray, 15 seconds of a stripper getting down to a top and a G-string, sometimes showing a little breast AND THAT’S ALL? OK, so there is one time where two well-clothed strippers grind into each other a little suggestively but again an opportunity missed and wasted. Christ, staying up and watching late-night weekend Cinemax or even renting any given title in the “Wild Comedy” section at any mom and pop video store gives you more than that. Where’s the filth?

Of course not to leave out the final piece of the lowbrow money-making triad you would have the game’s zany sense of humor inspired by the likes of Airplane and American Pie. Sorry folks, we’re talking Police Academy 6 or direct-to-video level fare in this game at best. A guy who is constipated in a port-a-potty, a pimp doing a bad Chris Rock impression yelling at his hoes, a frickin’ guy selling peanuts talking about his salty nut sacks? This is the funniest stuff they could come up with? Not only are the jokes completely tired, they are also generally delivered so poorly they lose what little humor they could have had in the execution. In a specific sense most absurd comedies that get it right have a straight man to play off of for laughs. Jim’s dad in American Pie, the doctor in Airplane… it isn’t just about the jokes themselves, it is also about the context and the delivery, two things that BMX fundamentally seems to lack any understanding of.

Returning to the opening statement, with all of the pieces in mind concerning what BMX XXX offers outside of the gameplay itself, this game truly has no well-defined audience. It utterly lacks the sophistication in humor or sexual content to attract and then deliver the goods to anyone old enough to buy an M-rated game. There are much funnier and obviously dirtier forms of media out there that someone over 18 has full and unrestricted access to. For people too young to properly buy this game sadly it still doesn’t deliver much more. True, you can see some boobies and giggle a few times at some of the outrageous tasks you’re asked to undertake but again, there is better in almost any form out there already. Take away the peripheral nonsense the game was marketed with and all you’re left with is an unremarkable extreme sports title. With that in mind, the final question ends up being why. Why objectify women and stereotype several races and social classes so callously, taking a ton of criticism in the process, and then settle for such a poor excuse for a pay-off on all levels?