If I were to pinpoint the main reason why Dave Mirra FreeStyle BMX works so well on the GBC, it’s because Acclaim has found a good balance between keeping the addictive gameplay from the other versions and not making things too complicated for the GBC to handle. Pressing A causes the rider to jump and for pulling off a trick when you’re in the air the leap from a ramp. B, on the other hand, is used for grinding during the times that you’re over a grindable area (a railing, the side of a building, etc.) and also for doing a trick when used in conjunction with one of the directional buttons. And as you might have figured out, tricks are pulled off by pressing either A or B and then up, down, right or left. It’s simple enough to pull them off, but the actual timing is a bit touchy, since it has to be done almost immediately after you’re in the air, or else the rider is heading face first into the dirt.

It might not be the most impressive GBC title out there, but the visuals in Dave Mirra FreeStyle BMX work well enough. The best part is that there’s a nice variety in the environments that you have the opportunity to bike in, and you’ll travel from skate parks to schools to competitions where you need to compete for medals to advance. The rider could have used a bit more animation for his crashes (especially after the hilarious crashes from the PlayStation game) and the actual tricks, since many times the rider looks stiff as a board as he twists around. And for some reason, there are parts of the levels that have a strange ‘X’ color/white combination that’s supposed to give the illusion of a shadow, but it ends up looking out of place.

Like the PlayStation version, Dave Mirra FreeStyle BMX on the GBC has players completing different sets of objectives in each stage that will unlock bike upgrades and new areas to explore. These objectives can range from collecting a series of objects that are scattered around the environment to earning a certain amount of points through grinding. None of the goals are particularly difficult, but enough so that the game isn’t finished in only 15 minutes. There are even bonus medals that are given out for finishing the level a certain way, such as completing all the objectives in a single run. And as an interesting twist to the GBC title, all the tricks are not available at the start; many of them have to be earned by picking up an icon that’s sitting in a usually hard-to-get spot.

There have been more than enough attempts at bringing biking, skating, snowboarding and other extreme sports to the GBC, but Dave Mirra FreeStyle BMX is the first to make it worth playing. There are still some rough sports to be worked out, but other developers could take a cue from what Acclaim has done right.