Razor Freestyle Scooter

***Razor Freestyle Scooter*** is the seventh episode of Just Bad Games, released on August 22, 2019. In this episode, Shane and Adam criticize this game as a cheap copy of the *Tony Hawk's Pro Skater* series.

## Transcript

**Adam**: *Tony Hawk's Pro Skater* is a game developed by Neversoft. It became a revolutionary success, spawning a franchise of games that spanned generations of consoles.

**Shane**: For many, this series was their inspiration to try skateboarding for the very first time, all the while, still attracting tons of non-skaters with its brilliant and addictive gameplay design.

**Adam**: But today, we're not talking about that game. We're talking about this:

*(Tikiman grunts and falls off his scooter)*

**Shane**: *Razor Freestyle Scooter*. Developed by Shaba Games and available across multiple platforms, but released first on the PlayStation 1.

**Adam**: And that's the version we're gonna be looking at today.

**Shane**: When *Tony Hawk's Pro Skater* took the world by storm, imitations were bound to pop up. But getting this close to replicating the cover artwork of the original game just verges on insulting.

**Adam**: Yeah, okay. The covers have similar color schemes and logos, but I really think there's something to be said about the athletes representing these games.

**Shane**: Tony Hawk looks confident, pulling off a precision move that he's likely done a million times before.

**Adam**: This guy?

**Shane**: Holding on for dear life before he is impaled on something terrible.

*(The boy on the cover art is impaled on a cone labelled "This Stupid Scooter Game")*

**VO**: Scootality!

**Adam**: Sure, this game isn't the only one to try and ride the trend that Tony Hawk set. There were many, many others.

**Shane**: But the difference between all the other replicas and this one is that *Razor Freestyle Scooter* was actually licensed from a real scooter manufacturer.

**Adam**: And licensing a brand name ALWAYS guarantees a good game, right?

*(RoboCop (2003) and Batman: Dark Tomorrow are seen in a dump)*

**Shane**: Ugh. Okay, let's dive in.

**Adam**: The game begins with a crayon-colored, kid-friendly animation of a bunch of kids scooting at a park.

**Shane**: When suddenly, a giant, crazed robot appears and kidnaps a bunch of the kids. Now it's up to you and your officially-licensed Razor scooter to save them.

**Adam**: What? Why did any of that just happen?

**Shane**: Because apparently, the developers felt there needed to be a story for an extreme sports game involving scooters.

**Adam**: You start by choosing a character. This one's name is Chad.

**Shane**: Chad seems to have broken his wrist, and one of his shoes are untied.

**Adam**: Chad doesn't inspire confidence in us at all.

**Shane**: Was this really the best choice for one of your starting characters? "Kid with fractured bone and obvious tripping hazard"?

**Adam**: Maybe they're trying to say that by riding a Razor scooter, you're likely to fall and break body parts?

**Shane**: Well, they would be right!

*(The impaled boy from the cover art farts)*

**Shane**: According to an article by *Time* magazine, from 1990 to 2011, about 42.5% of all children's admissions to hospitals were scooter-related. This game was released smack-dab in the middle of this fiendish wheeled epidemic.

**Adam**: Well, at least this game gets points for realism.

**Shane**: However, what isn't realistic is the gameplay.

**Adam**: But it is shameless. What you're looking at here is a harsh clone of the gameplay that you'd find in *Tony Hawk's Pro Skater*. You got the same free-roaming stage designs inviting you to explore as you play.

**Shane**: You've also got the same kind of combo system where you rack up points.

**Adam**: They also ripped off the types of goals: earn a bunch of points, grind for a certain distance, get a high combo, and even collect objects scattered in the levels.

**Shane**: And if you listen to the soundtrack, they've also used the same style and genre of music.

**Adam**: But the huge difference is that everything they stole was done so badly.

**Shane**: About those levels: yes, you've got the same free-roaming stages, but they're terribly designed.

**Adam**: This first stage is trying to mimic the classic opening stage of *Pro Skater*, complete with shattering window effect.

**Shane**: But the whole area is broken up into zones, rather than being one large level. It's a chore to traverse placing large parts of the stage out of easy reach.

**Adam**: You might hope that the stages get better as they go, but they really don't.

**Shane**: You've got a schoolyard stage, that again steals from- ahem- a certain skateboarding game, but it comes to a peak when you get to the third stage.

**Adam**: Riding scooters dangerously on top of buildings!

**Shane**: Combined with some less-than-stellar controls, you'll find yourself accidentally falling off the stage more than once. "*Razor Freestyle Scooter*: it's for kids"!

*(children cheer, then the character falls onto a car)*

**VO**: Scootality!

**Adam**: What about the next stage after this one?

**Shane**: Next stage?

**Adam**: Well, yeah.

**Shane**: Heh heh, there isn't one! This game has three main stages in total.

**Adam**: You're kidding.

**Shane**: Nope! But you do get a bunch of bonus challenge stages designed specifically for you to unlock characters.

**Adam**: Just because there are only three stages doesn't mean it's easy to play them.

**Shane**: Clearing stages requires you complete a checklist of chores that isn't fun at all.

**Adam**: Collecting items is just awful. Sometimes, you'll need to be razor-accurate when trying to pick them up, but the most offensive part of the gameplay is getting a high score with their combo system.

**Shane**: Linking combos in this game is near impossible and very frustrating. In the *Pro Skater* series, you could continue building on one combo all throughout the level by using manuals.

**Adam**: If you're precise enough, nothing can get in the way of you stringing move after move together to make the most rad combo you could, and earn a massive score.

**Shane**: This is one feature that made the series so addicting in the first place. But, in the masterpiece that is *Razor Freestyle Scooter*, there was no room for manuals.

**Adam**: The levels are designed so poorly that you'll have no way of continuing a combo between parts of the level. You will always hit a stop no matter what.

**Shane**: So, to build up the points you'll need to progress through the game, you'll just end up circling the same part of the map over and over, redoing the same tricks again and again.

**Adam**: Their lack of a good combo system is so broken, that they built in a feature where if you get enough points without crashing, they'll award you with extra time to keep playing the stage before the time runs out.

**Shane**: Isn't that great, folks? Your reward is more time playing this terrible game!

**Adam**: That doesn't seem like a good reward at al.

**Shane**: In other extreme sports titles, riders are typically adults, so when they bail or crash, it's not as jarring to watch.

**Adam**: But in this game, you're mostly playing as kids, and you're gonna see them fall a lot.

**Shane**: To the point where it seems cruel to keep playing.

**Adam**: And you might notice something about our pint-sized riders: no helmets or protective gear of any kind.

**Shane**: When you start up the game, you see a big disclaimer about how dangerous the stunts in this game are, and how you should always wear protective attire when using a scooter for real.

**Adam**: I'm sure every kid who brought this game home read the warning intently. If there's one thing that children love, it's safety warnings.

**Shane**: But you're not stuck playing as kids for the whole game. Remember those wonderful bonus stages? Well, with them, you can unlock a whole new cast of characters, like:

**Adam**: Chippie, the sentient sock monkey, who has the cold, dead eyes of a sock who's done unspeakable horrors.

*(scream)*

**Shane**: Tikiman. Half tiki, half man,

**Shane and Adam**: All culturally confusing.

**Adam**: And also, the robot the stole the kids from the start of the game. Yeah, when you beat the game, they play this terrible video. The robot gets shrunk down to kid-size and has the greatest explanation as to why he kidnapped children:

**Robot**: "Thanks, I feel better! Being big made me crazy. Let's scoot"!

**Adam**: So, he's not evil anymore, I guess. Now he's a playable character. But we saved the best for last:

**Shane**: Tito Ortiz!

**Adam**: A child version of Tito Ortiz.

**Shane**: The MMA fighter turned into a kid messing with scooters.

**Adam**: See, they had to get one celebrity in this game, and they went with a guy who wasn't even involved at any point with any sport involving wheels!

**Shane**: He beat up people for a living.

**Adam**: But now, he's a scootie.

**Shane**: Wait, is he wearing sandals while scootin'?

**Adam**: Where is his shirt?

**Shane**: If he crashes just once, he'll look like a leathery package of beef jerky.

**Adam**: Oh, and when he falls, he makes the most apathetic scream he could possibly muster:

*(Tito Ortiz screams, then falls onto a truck)*

**VO**: Scootali-

**Adam**: They must have spent every last dollar getting Tito Ortiz to appear in this game.

**Shane**: Nope.

**Adam**: What?

**Shane**: They didn't spend it with him. They took every last penny and spent it on this:

**Adam**: Wait, what am I watching?

**Shane**: When you select the credits in the main menu, you're treated to this visual feast starring the bunny, the bear, the alligator-

**Adam**: And a gorilla?

**Shane**: And a gorilla.

**Adam**: The team apparently rented a bunch of costumes and ran around outside their studio dressed up as animals playing with scooters for no apparent reason.

**Shane**: If it was only that one sequence where they're doing a bunch of weird stuff on scooters, we could leave it at that. But it gets really strange when the bunny goes to a barbershop to get its hair... cut?

**Adam**: Yeah, it gets creepy at points.

**Shane**: (heavy breathing) I wanna pet the bunny.

This whole credits sequence is six minutes long.

**Adam**: That's not a joke. We timed it.

*[5:53]*

**Shane**: So upon reflection, what do we have here?

**Adam**: We've got a game that doesn't feel fully fleshed out-

**Shane**: -despite stealing almost every one of its features from a much more popular and far better title.

**Adam**: Child endangerment, animal costumes, and Tito Ortiz. All of this combined leads us to one absolute truth about the game:

**Shane**: **IT'S JUST BAD.**

*(Chippie chatters with a dramatic sting, then falls down with a dramatic sting)*