The game assigned to me is called Bike Challenge 2, a stunt motocross biking game. After playing for a while and completing several levels, I believe I have sufficient feeling of the game to answer the questions.

The first question simply asks “Is this game fun?” My experience with the game has not been a fun one. I found the presentation of the game unexciting and the controls and physics to be a combined frustration.

The game is presented as a side-scroller. You press keys to accelerate, decelerate, and rotate your bike in the air. Before launching off of a ramp, you press the x key to boost yourself into the air and press a number key to do a trick. However, some ramps have a bug that causes you to launch into the air too early when pressing the x key, causing frustration when you miss the landing and the points tokens floating in the air.

While in the air, you are forced to struggle with the bike to keep it angled correctly for landing as it tries to spin up or down all the while trying to do a trick. The whole ordeal is more frustrating than challenging, especially when you launch into the air earlier than expected or without as much boost as you expected. The boost seems slightly unpredictable, with a short boost sometimes launching you into the air and a long boost rarely providing as much projection as you would hope.

The goal of the game is simply to reach higher levels while collecting money that you can use to purchase upgrades for your bike. The upgrades are for your acceleration, max-speed, boost, and protection. These upgrades allow your bike to perform better, allowing you to do more tricks for a higher score. This might be a fine goal for some other games, but this one lacks any type of story or fun game play to compensate for the simplistic goals. A storyline could a better goal such as perhaps working your way to the top and becoming the best biker in the world, with each level pushing you noticeably closer.

The game is not upfront about the reason for scoring points. When the game starts, you are told how to move the bike and how to do tricks and left to figure out the rest. After failing the level a few times, I realized that you have to reach a points goal to complete the level. However, the failure screen doesn't make this clear.

There is also no incentive to reach a higher level. Each level takes place in a different setting with the ramps in different locations. These is no story encouraging you to reach the next level, only the possibility being able to afford a new upgrade.

These upgrades, too, have very little incentive behind them. The upgrades do not introduce any new game play, just an enhancement of the game you start off with. This makes the game feel static. The movement of ramps and obstacles doesn't make later levels feel any different than the earlier ones which allows the game to become boring. New mechanics, such as the addition of new tricks to purchase could possibly help.

The game theme is simply motocross biking. The experience that the designer wishes the player to enjoy is the thrill of motocross biking. The designer does not succeed as the lack of exciting presentation and frustrating mechanics creates a lackluster experience of the sport.