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Mad Skills BMX 2 – Review

Back in 2018, Turborilla launched Mad Skills BMX 2 on Android and iOS. Although the free-to-play title was undoubtedly successful, racking up over 50 million downloads over the course of seven years, we didn’t have a 2025 Switch port of the game on our bingo card. Stranger things have happened though, and Switch owners can now indulge in portable BMX races on their hybrid handhelds. Mad Skills BMX 2 is an unexpected port, but is it a good one? Story There is no story to be found in Mad Skills BMX 2. While the game does boast a Career Mode where you race across different environments and even face off against bosses, there is no backstory given here. The game is purely about racing, improving your skills, unlocking gear, and competing. While the addition of some kind of narrative structure definitely would have been appreciated here, Mad Skills BMX 2 is still a port of a mobile game, of course, and those aren’t particularly well-known for including gripping stories. Graphics Prioritizing functionality and readability over realism, Mad Skills BMX 2’s 2D graphics are clean and stylized, but lacking in detail. To its credit, the game is varied when it comes to the different environments that the race tracks are set in, ranging from forests to deserts and urban areas. However, those very same environments, as well as the rest of Mad Skills BMX 2’s visuals, come across as uninspired and generic. Mad Skills BMX 2 lacks a visual identity of its own. The benefit of the inherent simplicity of the graphics is that the game doesn’t push the hardware. Mad Skills BMX 2 is a technically competent port that runs at a consistent 60 FPS, which is a claim that many other ported games can’t make on the ageing, underpowered hardware. Sound Mobile games typically don’t tend to put a lot of effort into their soundscapes, as most people play them with the sound off. That’s the case with Mad Skills BMX 2 as well, with the audio leaning more towards functionality than immersion. Music in particular is bland and forgettable. Sound effects fare better. The way your bike interacts with the environment is emphasized through noise, reinforcing a sense of momentum as you jump, stunt, and land across the tracks. Unsurprisingly, Mad Skills BMX 2’s soundscape doesn’t include any voice acting. Gameplay Before we get to the nitty-gritty of Mad Skills BMX 2’s gameplay, it’s important to note that we’re specifically looking at the Switch port of the game instead of the original mobile version. While the port is by and large the same game, there are some fundamental differences between both versions of the game, mainly concerning the game’s pacing and sense of progression. At the core of Mad Skills BMX 2 lies a simple 2D side-scrolling BMX racer, where you race 1v1 on tracks filled with ramps, slopes, and jumps. Momentum and physics are the heart of the gameplay. Landing smoothly and timing jumps properly is critical here, since bad landings slow you down. Races are designed for quick, pick-up-and-play sessions. Controls are intuitive and accessible. The original game was designed to be played with a touch screen, but the Switch port implements button controls instead, and these are seamlessly integrated. The controller’s shoulder buttons control jumping and momentum, and there are dedicated buttons for performing backflips or using rockets. Speaking of rockets, these act as consumable speed boosts. Although Mad Skills BMX 2 is a very accessible game, it does ramp up the difficulty, and rockets can really turn the tide in some of the game’s tougher races. Even though Mad Skills BMX 2 purports to be an accessible game at its core, it has a fairly high difficulty level. While things like rockets and different unlockable bike types can help with overcoming spikes, the real key to progressing is familiarizing yourself with the tracks. Each of these feels like a self-contained puzzle where timing and precision are key. The game really nails that “skill” requirement from its title. The Career Mode is fairly meaty, but anyone looking to test their mettle beyond that can get stuck in additional Challenges, including time attacks and blackflip contests, as well as so-called Pro Zones, which feature expert-level tracks. Beyond those, the game offers local 1v1 multiplayer, although the online component present in the mobile version of the game has been removed. For the most part, the transition of Mad Skills BMX 2’s core game to the Switch was handled well, but there are some areas where the game’s mobile roots are still showing. In the mobile version of the game, players could speed up game progress through microtransactions, enabling faster access to better bikes or more rockets. Microtransactions have been removed entirely here, with a one-time €9.99 payment giving you access to the full game. Unfortunately, Mad Skills BMX 2’s in-game costs weren’t adjusted accordingly (or at least, not enough), resulting in a poorly paced game where progression can feel grindy as bike costs inflate, and difficulty spikes push you to revisit old tracks over and over again. The game ends up keeping a freemium feel, even though this is a paid console version. Conclusion There is a genuinely good game hiding somewhere in Mad Skills BMX 2’s mechanics, but it doesn’t completely shine through here. While the fast-paced core experience is as accessible as it is skill-based, the Switch port could’ve done with some rebalancing to even out the removal of microtransactions. The game’s presentation didn’t wow us either, but given that the simplicity of the visuals allowed the game to run more smoothly on the Switch than most other games, this is something that can be overlooked. As it stands, Mad Skills BMX 2 is a decent and serviceable title, but not an outstanding one.