It’s always strange to play a sequel when you haven’t so much as downloaded the OG. The inconvenience isn’t, like, gut-wrenching or anything — maybe a notch or two below an Indian burn on the list of things I find irritating — but I don’t like thinking I could be missing something. This wasn’t a problem for Stick Stunt Biker 2. Whatever got lost in the translation from one to two must have been small, because if not, there wouldn’t be much game here to begin with.
Strictly Casual
That isn’t a knock. You can’t judge a casual game on its depth any more than you can hate on an old-school RPG for taking too long. You’re given a simple task (in this case crossing a finish line). You finish it. The game ranks your performance on a three-star scale. Maybe you unlock some stuff. It’s the same thing you’d expect from any game of the ilk.
What matters, then? Execution. Think way back to the early days of Angry Birds. Sure, the character art’s cute and all, but if that’s all the game had people would have played it a few times and uninstalled. It became an industry icon by way of easy game mechanics, simple controls, and a fun basic premise. Even if Stick Stunt Biker 2 doesn’t do a Birds-level job in any of those categories, it gets enough right to be worth more than a one-off session.
More Than Backgrounds
Ever wanted to, say, tear through the world of indie darling Limbo on a dirtbike? Yeah, didn’t think so. You’ll be surprised you didn’t think of it before when you’re doing loop-de-loops on the branches of some big, spooky tree. Stick Stunt Biker 2’s levels aren’t all that extreme — many, in fact, are set in normal places like forests and the Sub-Saharan desert — but nearly all of them are a blast. The environment between bike and flag accounts for most of the game’s fun, providing loops and jumps and exploding oil drumbs to conquer in as quick a time as possible. There are a whole bunch of them, too. Like, enough to make me want to click an ad or something. That’s some serious value right there.
Final Call
If you consider three years ago old-school, think of this game as a b-list classic . It’s a good game. Nothing fancy, but good. That’s the best way I can put it. There are worse things you can do with a phone and no money, that’s for sure.
