Descenders

Some good ideas are so simple that you wonder why it took so long to get out into the world. That was my first thought when playing through Descenders, a downhill mountain biking game with procedurally-generated worlds and random objectives. It's basically that PlayStation 2 game Downhill Domination meets Spelunky, a combination that works so well that I wouldn't be surprised to see Electronic Arts and other major developers rip off the idea for their own extreme sports franchises.

Hang on tight, because the goal of this game is to get to the bottom of the mountain in one piece. This is a unique racer where the focus isn't on fighting off the competition or coming in first, but rather surviving the narrow courses long enough to make it to the finish line. These are short tracks that are randomly constructed, giving you a completely different experience every time you turn it on.

Of course, there's more to Descenders than just getting to the bottom of a mountain. You start out each session with four lives, which means that you can withstand crashing a few times before the game ends and you're kicked back out to the lobby. The trick is to complete the optional missions in each stage to earn a much-needed extra life. These include everything from completing the race without braking, performing a certain number of backflips, getting six seconds of airtime and so on so forth. You'll want to rack up as many of these extra lives as possible in order to take on the boss jump and move on to the next challenging terrain.

Descenders is split up into eight different locations, taking us to the jungle, desert, snowy mountains and even through a village. It's not just a nice mix of terrains, but also a way for the game to introduce new obstacles and stunt jumps in each location. Best of all, you'll be able to unlock all eight of these terrains by completing the boss challenges. And since each map has dozens of events to tackle, you'll be tempted to just go around completing missions and stocking up extra lives. But you can't spend too much time in any one spot, because the sun will start to set on each location and eventually make it hard to see. It will get to the point where you'll be biking down the mountain in the middle of the night with only the moonlight to guide you.

What I really like is how the procedurally-generated tracks don't feel random. In fact, you don't even have to stay on the track. This is an open world you're racing in, so if you think you can shave off some time by cutting through the trees or going off road, then you're free to run each event as you see fit. And since you are rarely timed, you can quite literally peddle back up the mountain in order to finish the randomly assigned mission. You can take most of these events at your own pace, which definitely sets this game apart from most racing games.

Another thing that sets each playthrough apart is how you hire crew members that will give the rider some perks. You'll gain points by going fast and pulling off sick stunts, which you can use to improve your steering, widen the tracks, increase the amount of stunts, pull off flip tricks faster and other useful abilities. These will stick around throughout the session, but will go away the moment you run out of lives and have to start over. Thankfully, you'll earn a lot of extra bikes, helmets, goggles, shirts, accessories and more from each session, so there's a lot of incentive to keep playing.

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It helps that the gameplay feels right. There isn't a whole lot to the riding, but the handling is tight and the only times I felt out of control were when I was headed straight down the steepest mountains. The only problem I have with the gameplay is that there aren't enough tricks to pull off. You can do a lot of the basic flips and 360s, but all the trick stuff feels like it was tacked on at the last second. It would have been fun to see this part of the game fleshed out more, especially since there are entire events dedicated to tricking.

Speaking of complaints, there's a repetition to the event types that started to get to me after a while. While it's always fun to speed down the mountain, I wish that Descenders had a little more variety. So much of it can be summed by as little more than surviving until the end, and it would have been fun to race computer opponents or try to compete for points. There also needs to be a few more objectives, because you can go three or four games in a row where the goal is to complete the stage without braking. This concept has so much potential, but some of these limitations hold the game back.

I have other nitpicks, like how you can't customize your character or buy different gear. The killer concept only gets Descenders so far, and it's clear that there's still a lot more they can do with this idea. But even if it's occasionally repetitive and doesn't offer some of the most popular race types, I was still impressed by the amount of varied locations, the colorful graphics and the tight gameplay. This is a game that manages to breathe new life into the extreme sports genre, all while being the best bike riding simulator in years. If this is the first attempt, then I can't wait to see what the Descenders sequels are going to look like.