Trail Boss BMX

Genre: Sports (“Extreme”)

Players: 1

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Review:

Trail Boss BMX is an Offroad Biking game released on mobile devices in 2019 and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2020. Players ride a bike down a path trying to land jumps and doing tricks while in the air.

The presentation here is good, with slightly-cartoony 3D graphics that look polished, and even have nice details like your rider getting covered with dirt after taking a tumble. There is no music to accompany these visuals, but there are some really nice bike and nature noises that build atmosphere in a way that reminded me of Lonely Mountains: Downhill, albeit not quite at that level of quality.

For the gameplay itself, this game consists of short, mostly-linear paths divided by multiple jumps, with players needing to ensure that they keep their bike to the path and take advantage of jumps to do tricks. Players don’t need to time jumps or anything like that, they only need to concern themselves with avoiding obstacles and the edges of the path, and trying to complete goals and improve their score by doing tricks while in the air.

The linear nature of the game’s levels, and the inability to control much beyond turning and doing tricks limits the player’s input in the game somewhat. However, what really frustrates me about the gameplay is that the controls for tricks are mapped to the two analog sticks, the same analog stick you’re using to steer. This can make the controls really frustrating, and can cause accidents when you’re trying to make a quick turn after landing and accidentally do a trick.

Another frustration here is this game’s level goals, which vary, but sometimes require you to do a specific trick… but the game doesn’t always tell you how to do the tricks required to complete these goals, leaving the player stuck trying out everything until they stumble on the trick the game wants them to do.

It’s a real shame these sorts of frustrations leak into the experience of Trail Boss BMX, because the Nintendo Switch could absolutely use more Extreme Sports games. And I could definitely see the core gameplay here being fun, except the frustrating controls and lack of clarity in level goals make things more frustrating than they need to be. Ultimately, if you’re looking for an Extreme Sports game to add to your Nintendo Switch library, Trail Boss BMX is okay, but it definitely leaves room for improvement.

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tl;dr – Trail Boss BMX is an Offroad Biking game where players try to avoid obstacles and stay on a bike path while taking jumps and performing tricks. There’s potential for some fun fast-paced gameplay here, but problematic controls and unclear level goals make for an unnecessarily frustrating experience.

Grade: C

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