The first I’ve heard of the ‘Mad Skills’ series, Mad Skills BMX 2 is now available on the Nintendo Switch.

It’s really easy to pick up and play, with arcade-esque mechanics, accessible controls and clean, simple (but definitely adequate) visuals. The tutorial, while slightly lacking, does give you everything you need to play, with your BMX biker racing against a computer controlled opponent on each level to get to the finish line first.

You’ll press down on the controller to pump through sections of the stage, up to jump and Y to use one of your limited rocket boosts. There are backflips too, accessed with a single button press and proving how easy it is to have quite a bit of control over your BMX.

It’s all very straightforward, though the AI opponents you’re up against can prove frustratingly precise in their knowledge of each track, but it does pay to learn the layout and make repeated attempts.

The difficulty of opponents gets a bit of a spike with the bosses, who can be pretty rage-inducing to play against. That said, rocket boosts can give you the edge you need, even against the toughest of bosses; using them repeatedly almost feels like cheating.

However, they’re locked behind in-game currency, which can be another point of frustration. Improving your gear, including BMX upgrades and new bikes, can be a bit of a grind.

Even though levelling up happens fairly frequently, certainly at the beginning of the game, improving your gear to give you a fighting chance as you proceed can be a slow process of earning cash through repeating stages you’ve already completed.

You’ll earn a free rocket pack every few hours, though you have to remember to manually claim these, and this, coupled with the grinding nature of getting enough currency to get the gear you need, really betrays the games mobile roots.

A split screen mode removes the problem of frustrating AI, and does make for a pretty enjoyable, if lightweight, experience.

In short, Mad Skills BMX 2 is a pretty decent game if you can overlook the grind; hey, look on the bright side: at least there’s no actual money involved in saving up your in-game cash for the fancy gear!

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