STREET UNi X

My feelings for [i]Street Uni X[/i] are complicated. At first glance, this indeed seems to be [i]Tony Hawk's Pro Skater[/i] (1999) with three wheels missing: Score attack in small open areas with extra tasks. Find letters, jump over gaps, etc. and a bar that fills up as you do tricks. So, what's different? Lots of discipline-specific details: The necessity to move / pedal backwards and forwards in equal measures – you won't be riding backwards on a skateboard a whole lot – coasting, two dedicated grind buttons, depending on if the rail is right or left to you. And balancing on both the x and y axis comes into play, too, without spoiling the fun. (I think that incorporating balance in sports games is a big design challenge: Nobody wants to fall on their face all the time, but in REAL LIFE that is skating's first mid boss... but often this stage is skipped in games, for obvious reasons, so good compromise here) And something else that you may not really care about. As long as I can remember extreme sports games were made for mostly boys. Girls and queer representation hardly mattered. Sure, you had Elissa Steamer in [i]Tony Hawk[/i], or the made up (among pro skaters with surnames) "Chrissy" and "Jordan" in [i]Aggressive Inline[/i], and just like in real life you take what you can get. ([i]Rolling[/i] for the PlayStation 2 had some cool professional women skaters.) Maybe you're allowed to create a custom character and make up your own "representation". Seeing yourself on the screen is nice, but actually being catered to (there it is, the bad word!) is nicer. It's like, finally, a game for "us". Without jiggle physics. So, fine, representation alone doesn't make a game good, does it? No, but to the people it matters to it can elevate a competently made "clone" to "Wow, I'm welcome here and not just tolerated and I will gladly accept some jank for that". Random thoughts in lose order: - The trailer is really good, but: - The music isn't as varied as the trailer suggests, pretty much all locally sourced skate punk and alternative rock, some nice post-hardcore tracks, but nothing atmospheric or "chill"? I would love some calmer tracks. [i]Street Uni X[/i]'s maps might have atmospheric potential (rain outside the warehouse), but right now the music sometimes kills the mood (Of course I can put on my own, but who doesn't like a nice curated playlist?) - Despite all the fun stylings, this is a pretty serious and technical game: For instance you can't correct your jumps in mid air, which means you have to line them up accurately. - Skateboards make more interesting (feedback) sounds than Unicycles, which is unfortunate for a video game, but I noticed that the sounds present aren't bad, they just get drowned out by the default music - I don't need to see that PlayStation boot up joke every time I start the game, let me get to it - If I roll against an obstacle, it appears that the wheel snaps right to the obstacle's angle, doesn't feel right [i]Street Uni X[/i] let me time travel to an alternate 2000s, where instead of being disconcerted by Bam Margera I would have had a role model like Daffodil to look up to. If you don't see what's special about this - if this appears to be a mere throwback or even a joke game - with all due respect, you might not be the target audience, and that's okay.

Having played every indie hawk-type game i could get my hands on, this one has by far the best handling and the best sense of what exactly was the 'special sauce that made the gameplay work in those old titles. simultaneously a faithful throwback and a compelling vision for the future, this title makes me excited to see what else this developer can do in the design playspace of this sub-genre.

I don't leave reviews often, but this is a fantastic game. The levels are built in a way where you always have something nearby to combo off, and the goals are all just difficult enough to be a challenge, but not impossible. The music's great. I haven't heard ANY of these songs before this game, but they fit in perfectly! The controls are a bit different from what you might expect. L1/R1 to grind - depending on if the rail is to your left or right, Triangle for manuals, and you have to move either forward or backward - you don't just automatically move forward lol, It's a little disorienting at first, but it lets you perform tricks and combos while moving backward... it's not easy, but you can do it! I'm a THPS nerd, and Street Uni X has been a really fun time. Highly recommend!

[H3]Does a better job than most games with more wheels.[/h3] Street Uni X is a street-unicycle arcade/retro styled game. And it is truly unique. Too unique in fact for such a still, sadly niche community of unicycle riders for the main dev, daffodil which just said to themselves : [quote=daffodil surely]Since i can't find any games that showcase street-unicycling, I'm gonna make my own.[/quote] And they damn did. The game is a total success, and a celebration of the classic Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games of the venerated Neversoft era. It is the closest thing you can get nowadays as a continuation of this style of game. Don't be affraid of the limited number of wheels, It does matter in terms of controls but not so much in gameplay.. [B]Wheel[/b] actually... It does diversify and complexify the usual formula by allowing you to go forward or backward when moving or grinding. Outside of that, you should expect the usual ways to keep combos from the ways until THPS4. Manuals, Wall-rides, Wall tag jumps, grinds, have all their assocoated tricks in it, with the usual same control scheme. A veteran player will quickly get back to it's root, same goes for the arcady levels selection and objectives, either in a classic 2mn combo limit, or in free-play to train yourself on some spots. The levels have been meticulously designed with the same attention to detail and gameplay as the classic games, offering for plenty ways to easily master the levels with an extreme combo once you learn it. Outside of some expansions for player customization, parc editors, mod tools and multiplayer (local and online, with free-ride, combo attack and perhaps some custom gamemodes), that's the only needed thing i would ask.

Street Uni X is the most unbelievably earnest work I’ve encountered in an age, playing it i feel +10 immunity to cringe. it's an arcade challenge with the perfect amount of baked-in jank, the nightmare of adjusting your muscle memory from THPS to this system might well be my favorite joke of 2024. it's from the universe where game soundtracks are and have always been cooler than underground radio. there's just so much joy in this project.

It's easy to imagine a version of this game that is just Tony Hawk's Pro Skater with unicycles. The foundation is already similar, sure, but Street Uni X still feels like its own thing. The result is something that feels familiar enough to pick up the basics, but different enough to capture the idiosyncrasies of riding a unicycle and give it a distinct feel. A fresh and welcome spin on a classic formula.

EDIT: Five hours into gameplay i'm having an absolute blast. The muscle memory from THPS games is getting less intrusive (skill issue tbh) and i just love this game. I never really took THPS very seriously, always played it on easy and only did the objectives I felt like doing rather than learning how to do big combos. This game has me in a different type of way, I *really* want to 100% this game. I love this game to pieces. I can't wait to see what daffodil does next because this game is pure gold. This game rocks. The art direction is fantastic, it perfectly captures the feel of old extreme sports games. The soundtrack is fantastic, it has a lot of variety but all tracks maintain the same 'extreme sports' vibe the game is going for. The gameplay is similar to THPS, but has its own intricacies that take the unique mode of transportation into account. Overall, this is a fantastically executed love letter to both unicycling and PSX extreme sports games. The good: - Familiar control style with key changes to take the unicycle's natural characteristics into account, letting the player basically re-learn a game from the extreme sports genre all over again. (i think this is a good thing, it's like being a dumb kid splashing my dumb kid fingers around the controller until i learn the controls properly and combo like a pro) - The visual effects are nailed perfectly - The game feels incredibly polished compared to other PSX-style de-makes or fan remakes i've played - The soundtrack is gnarly - Level design is fantastic - Missions/objectives in career mode aren't softballs, but they're not super difficult for sponge-brains like myself - Wide variety of graphics options to suit anybody's preference for their ideal gameplay (vertex snapping can be turned off, resolution can be increased or decreased, dithering can be turned on and off, et cetera) The meh: - Some sound design issues (no tire noise/scrub while riding, no effect plays while landing, bailing is sonically lacking in foley) but what's there is pretty good - It's kind of easy to miss new text messages Honestly, if you keep in mind that this game isn't trying to imitate THPS but instead build off of that formula with unicycles rather than skateboards, you'll probably have a lot of fun learning the game mechanics that differentiate this game from old extreme sports titles. This game isn't trying to be "THPS but with Unicycles," it's putting its own spin on the genre. Grinding is on the shoulder buttons because you can grind on the left or ride side of the fixed wheel, and it has to be an intentional choice to make as opposed to skateboarding where your point of contact with the rail or ledge is generally gonna be somewhere in the middle of the board. Using up and down on the d-pad to manual in THPS makes some sense because of how skateboards work, but doesn't make any sense at all in the context of unicycles. So, to ground-stall and extend combos, you use D-pad Up and Y/Triangle to "coast," which is where the rider takes their feet off the pedals. This game wasn't made by somebody who wanted to chop out a THPS rip-off with a quirky twist to make it unique. This game features a lot of intentional creative decisions that deviate from THPS to account for the new mode of transportation. This is obviously a project of extreme passion for both unicycling and old extreme sports games, and the results of that passion could not be of higher quality. I'm gonna go look up some street unicycling videos now.

This game is obscenely fun and is the most sincere love letter to extreme sports games of old I've seen. My only gripe is the lack of air control after you jump, its definitely an awkward adjustment to make at first but the game is so solid in every other aspect that it's more of just a personal complaint than actual problem with the game. I'd highly recommend this one for anyone hankering for some Tony Hawk/Dave Mirra action

This game manages to hit all the nostalgic chords while not feeling like a clone of what came before. Has run smoothly on my M1 macbook despite not being officially supported hardware/software

The controls take a bit to get used to, but I've been hooked. I'm not even sure I complete any characters back in THPS 3, but Street Uni X has me wanting to complete them all. Also, the game is much faster to boot up, pick a character, and get going than THPS 1 + 2. I also like the physics here more. If you ever happen to make a Street Uni X 2 or Street Uni X: Underground, my wallet will be waiting.