Reviews

The first Codemasters game on the Spectrum. My friend bought it, and we played it on his machine expecting just another throw away budget game. But this had us vexed. It was decent quality. Who were these Codemasters people? We decided that the shop had put the wrong price tag on the cassette.

It is a fun game, with the bonus of either playing against the computer or as two players. The computer follows a set path, and automatically kills on contact, so theres no chance of cutting it up.

It would be decent at full price. For £1.99 this is rightly the start of the Codemasters empire.

One of the earlier releases from Code Masters, and its fair to say its not one of their best either. BMX Simulator lacked the real feel of a racing game for me, right from the off, I never got into it. The control were very awkward and the graphics, though nicely drawn, were a little bit bland for a racing game. Also I don't like the title music and looking at the credits it appears the music was done by my favourtie 8-bit composer David Whittaker. On the bright side, things did get a whole lot better for Mr. Whittaker and for Code Masters.

One of the first Code Masters offering, and one of the best. A BMX racing simulator where you can compete against the computer or another player over a set of well-laid and presented tracks.

The only thing I do not like is the pretty grating sound of the bikes going around, but it is just a minor fault in what is a jolly good budget game.

I reckon it's also much better than its sequel.

BMX Simulator (Code Masters)
by Tim Miller, James Wilson, David Whittaker

I was a BMX kid living in BMX years, so I was naturally attracted by this game - but it was a bit of a frustrating experience, because I used to get caught on the items delimiting the track, and it was rather easy to go out of it. And your opponent can run over you making you fall, just when you were restarting after a stop.
Trying it now... it still results a painful experience. By the same team behind ATV Simulator but definitely inferior.
It can be played by 2 players simultaneously. Lots of cool jingles, nice graphics, and seals.
2,5/5

Tim Miller wrote an awesome array of simulator-arcade games. Games such as ATV Simulator or Run For Gold, are amonsgt my favorites games ever.
Sadly the same can't be said about BMX Simulator. It's not that it is a bad game, by any means, in fact it plays rather well and looks good, but maybe the one screen nature of the game and being viewed from above makes the game less addictive over time. Also movement tends to be a little erratic (just a little compared to other games), and that happens because of the need to emulated real tracks feel, but in such a small one-screen it causes some annoyance playing it. It is still one of the best in this sort of one screen bike simulators.

One of Code Masters' more memorable simulators and yet it's one of the shittest, or at least the Spectrum version is anyway, I'm sure it was good on the other formats, but this Spectrum version I never got on with. But saying that it's better than the Jet Ski garbage they brought out later. The action replay is a pretty nice feature but you see it once and it's impressive, you see it twice and it's not a big deal anymore and it doesn't save this in any way.