26 out of 26 people found this review helpful.
I wonder how many people got yelled at trying to make this game?!
Date of Review: Mar 16, 2005
The Bottom Line: You will have more fun building your own bike.
AMERICAN CHOPPER
(Activision Value/Creat Studio, December 3, 2004)
It had to happen sooner or later but here is another game based on a TV show (didn't I do this last month?). If you don't know the show; American Chopper on the Discovery Channel follows the lives of Paul Teutul Senior and Paul junior as they often fight and argue about making some of coolest looking motor bikes in the world. It may work for a reality TV show but does it work as a game you ask? American Chopper the game lets you race across a virtual 3D city with several vintage and custom made motorbikes and all for the low price of 19.99 US. Let's see if Activision can pull this one off.
AC automatically gets off to a bad start. Instead of controlling the decisions of Paul Sr. or Jr. while they make special custom made Chopper for a big time celebrity in a strict stress inducing time limit like the show does, this game forces you to play as a generic "New Guy" who just got hired at American Chopper.
You control this new guy in the Career mode to do mundane race challenges and you're typical point A to point B missions you played a million times before in other games. You do these little fetch quest missions to help you unlock more bikes that look slightly different then the last bike. Gee, what fun (note the sarcasm).
Just like in those popular 3D Grand Theft Auto games you can freely drive around a big city in search of friends and clients while being careful of the local drivers and the cops. If you are going to steal a great idea that is definitely the one game to rip off for sure, unfortunately unlike a game like GTA San Andreas the controls are horrible and it is way too easy to score a bunch of annoying penalties when you hit something by mistake.
AC is a budget title and man does it show. The characters here have blocky joints and figures making them look like puppets plus I constantly see objects in the background suddenly appear out of no where. If that wasn't bad enough you can also magically drive through certain obstacles like bushes and street poles as if they were not even there! Overall this looks too much like a poor man's Playstation2 title and not some you would expect from the Xbox.
The game does offer some decent background rock music from artist like Bachman-Turner Overdrive and Saliva if you like that stuff. The music sure helped me to forget about the lousy acting in the many dull cut-scenes here.
For all of AC's problems, the game still does a few things right. One smart idea Activision/Creat Studios did was making this game simple enough for anyone to pick up and play, even if the controls don't handle too well at times. Another thing that stands out here is that if you are to copy any game out there at least it was Grand Theft Auto minus all the car jacking, freedom, and fun. Unfortunately even at its discounted price, American Chopper just doesn't do the hit TV show justice with its generic graphics and basic races. Although it has a few good points about it, the game ultimately fails to be even above average.
American Chopper overall rating: 49/100
For 1 player only
ESRB Rating: T
visuals: 4/10
audio: 5/10
gameplay: 5/10
features: 4/10
replay: 4/10
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-StarSoldier1 2005 (Ryan Genno)
