Shopping cart, schmopping cart, Bam! My uni's rad, yeah!
Some people really hate change, which is especially tragic as change is the only real certainty in life. I, myself, absolutely understand the impulse to drown in nostalgia, especially memories of a past that never really existed. For a few years during my sentence in the middle of nowhere, I spent untold evenings falling on the double edged sword of chemical and media based escapism, attempting to completely forget the weight of the built up layer of context I carry around called "the past". Being someone and somewhere else, even if only for a brief moment in an alcohol induced haze was my ultimate aim. I think a lot of people are doing the same as I was but in a far less booze-fueled and melodramatic fashion.
Evidence of this sort of looking backwards nostalgia-culture can be seen in the surge of remakes, remasters, and reboots in the current media landscape. When you reach "the end of history" the only place left to look is the past. It is easier to imagine an ultra 4k hd remake of Tony Hawk's Underground than to imagine the end of capitalism. I'm allowing myself to be excited for thps3+4, despite it's flaws, but I'd much rather see some real iteration and innovation in a completely new entry in the Tony Hawk's franchise. It's honestly not even that much of an ask, just take the thps1+2 engine and make like 10 new levels and maybe a couple new modes or whatever. There's plenty of new ideas and concepts to explore within this format rather than resorting to just remaking what's already been done. Although, the gaming industry right now is so risk averse it is currently ouroboros-ing itself, chasing infinite profit instead of *any* profit. Real post gaming shit.
I think Street Uni X existing at all is a fucking miracle. It's at least a miracle that my shitty thinkpad t550 can run it. In my uneducated opinion there is actually a lot of untreaded ground in that sort of ps1 esque low poly aesthetic, and as a bonus modeling in that style is actually doable by a normal human being. It reminds me of web 1.0, in that it's actually accessible, and when well done still looks sick as fuck. Street Uni X, also, looks sick as fuck. I love that you can tell a lot of love and care was put into this game. This extends to the soundtrack as well, all handpicked mostly local vancouver bands by the dev of the game, Daffodil. My favorites on the soundtrack is probably Heavy Thinking by Rinse Dream , and I Dont Think Much At All by Emma Goldman . One of the criticisms I've seen of the game was the lack of diversity in the soundtrack, saying it's all punk/screamo/indie bands, which isn't true as there is some electronic-ish type tracks in there as well (shouts out to twink obliterator ). Even if this criticism were true, I think the curation of the vibe is more important than checking boxes that you have different music genres. Also you can just turn the soundtrack off and put your own shit on if you get sick of it. This is not a super important point to refute, but I felt compelled to refute it.
Now I'm about to get into a lot of granular nerd shit about the controls and mechanics here which requires a little bit of an explanation about my explanation. Even though I was using a switch pro controller and the switch has been my main console for years now, I still do not know which buttons are a or b or x or y. I have to look down at my controller like a 7th grader learning typing for the first time, anytime a game requests a specific button. It's embarrassing and I have already accumulated like 2 decades worth of experience with the PlayStation controller button format, so that is how I will be discussing them here in this article.
The biggest two things that I think will throw off any die hard THPS-head are that manuals (in this game called "coasts", as how do you manual when you already only have one wheel, dumbass?) are mapped to square plus a direction as opposed to up and then down, and to grind in this game, you grind on the left with l1 and the right with r1. Now also in addition to that the function of the face buttons in Street Uni X are the same as in THPS, except in Street Uni X they are turned anti-clockwise a quarter turn. This feels a little confusing to explain so Im going to belabor this point for a second and come back to the other shit later. In THPS, the controls were X to ollie, or jump, square is your flip tricks, triangle is grind, and circle is grab. In Street Uni X they are, X for aerial non holdable tricks (functionally flip tricks but on a uni), square is coast, triangle is grabs (holdable air tricks), and circle is jump. If you swap out grind in the THPS configuration for coast, they are the same besides being turned a quarter turn anti-clockwise. Now I'm not sure if this was some shit that was because I was using a switch pro controller hooked to my pc, or because it was done through steam controller whatever that it was like this. I assume this configuration is intentional, and not some technical aberration. It makes me wonder if this is derived from playing THPS on a gamecube controller as opposed to a playstation controller, but given the heavy ps1 theming and homages in Street Uni X, I'd say that's probably cap. I also must confess that I used steam controller support to rebind these buttons back to their places they would normally be in THPS, just so i didn't have to bash my head against decades of muscle memory for no good reason.
Manuals/coasts being mapped to a button as opposed to up then down aren't unheard of as I believe manuals in Konami's Evolution Skateboarding are up + triangle or down + triangle. There's also far more than two types of coasts in Street Uni X, so it makes sense it would have to be mapped to direction plus a button to allow for such permeations. One thing I noticed which I'm not sure if was done intentionally but I like to believe that it was because I think it's secretly very smart, is that in this game you must press up to move forward. In THPS you can simply hold X to prepare an ollie, and that will make you move on its own (unless you are a sick and twisted fuck who plays with autokick off). As a consequence of this, I would sometimes be pressing up to pedal forward, go into a coast and then immediately eat shit afterwards because I was still holding up, which would make my balance meter go too far. I have zero mechanical understanding of unicycling outside of this game but it stands to reason that by calling it a "coast" that would mean one would have to stop pedaling and focus on balancing instead of gaining forward momentum. I definitely missed being able to hold X to go faster, but once this happened I realized the trade off was worth a little extra mechanical immersion.
Grinds being mapped to the shoulder bumpers I think fucked a lot of people up, but I found it and also the fact that when you are riding in fakie (backwards) they are swapped, meaning the controls are relative to the rider very interesting and unique. I've been playing a lot of session lately (as evidenced by the new music video I just dropped for VoidDweller Sonic Violence Unit ;) ), so knowing which side is going to grind the ledge is something I am already thinking about and not a huge thing to acclimatize to. Turning controls are also swapped while riding fakie, which is something that's been done in either matt hoffmans pro bmx, the dave mirra ps1 games, or agressive inline. I'm not sure if it's one or all of those but it has been done and I think adds an extra layer of uniqueness and mechanical depth to Street Uni X. As someone lately deepening their appreciation of fighting games, I also really fucked with the fact that some of the tricks Daffodil sends you texts about later are sort of gestural, the frame slide being right left r1 (or left right or l1, I can't remember lmao), which in my brain mimics laying the uni down and stepping on it. The tricks revealed later are also under two directions plus a button, but not ALL two directions plus a button equals a trick, so you have to actually remember the combinations to do a specific move. I really liked how THPS1's special tricks were sort of hidden and you had to look up what everybody's individual shit was, like looking up special moves for fighting game characters. Now being able to remap specials to whatever button combinations in THPS has killed that particular fun for me a little bit but it's also such a huge quality of life improvement for scoring I don't think we could ever go back, but I digress.
Speaking of scoring, I found myself mostly scoring by holding grinds for a very long time, often in circular or very basic circuit patterns. I know for sure that the circular grind with the little gaps in it in the downtown level was done intentionally, as evidenced by Daffodil mentioning it specifically in this lovely talk. "Stunt goggles" is a really nice way to succinctly describe how skaters/other extreme sports athletes see the world differently, and a term I look forward to adding to my vocabulary. Anyway, these sort of circular or even just long grinds are often actively discouraged in THPS, as your ability to balance on a grind or manual deteriorates over time by making the pointer part of the meter increasingly hard to control. The meta for scoring big in THPS, based on my research seems to be staying in the air as much as possible doing very tiny grinds and manuals along with wallrides to maximize time in which to do air tricks. This is not the case in Street Uni X. In clearing the later levels, airship especially, I would often just do circuits grinding around the outside edge of the level, occasionally jumping from rail to rail or using a coast to get from one to the other, but grinding still making up the lions share of my combo points. This lack of grind / coast balance deterioration isn't necessarily a bad thing, as I think it does make the game easier for other people who do not have 20+ years of extreme sports games experience unlike myself.
Spins with the shoulder buttons also function similarly to THPS, although in THPS You can also spin in the air with the dpad after a short delay, and that was not the case with my time playing this game. I did notice dpad spins worked as intended while playing with keyboard which I found perplexing. I cannot remember if playing with keyboard if there even was a separate spin button or it was only the dpad to spin. A real professional would probably fact check this prior to publishing this article, but fuck it we ball. Also in the vein of shit I should fact check but wont, is the lack of vert making an appearance in the game. I believe Daffodil mentioned such in the prior linked interview (or somewhere) that uni vert just doesn't really exist irl due to it being so difficult. I will say though that I didn't notice it's absence until like halfway through my time playing Street Uni X anyway, as it felt complete to play and not like anything was missing.
Continuing the theme of talking about shit other people criticized about this game, I believe in RadRat's video on Street Uni X dude says that he didn't use the footplant at all after the tutorial and completely forgot about it. The footplant is incredibly useful if you get stuck in one spot with no momentum, as each one gives you a little push forward and there is no limit to how many you can do in a row. Infinite footplants, motherfucker. I really liked the wall tap as a concept as well and I'm sure that's another thing people perhaps also underutilized. I made use of it a lot in the indoor park trying to get to one of the trick letters high up on the right side of the level above the like ledge rail plywood thing right next to the wall. Walltap on the brick and the walltap on the wood and that launches you up enough to get enough air to get the trick letters ezpz. I do wish there was like a wallplant that you could ride directly towards a wall and plant and then get pushed back the other direction. There's no where else to mention this so I will also mention the rail ride here, which on certain rails allows you to press both grind buttons and then ride along the rail with your uni tire. This is also great for lower momentum situations as you can/have to push forward to pedal, which can be tricky to do while also managing the balance meter to not faceplant and eat shit.
There has been a shitload of entries in the "arcade" extreme sports genre and walltaps and footplants (to my knowledge 🤞) have NEVER been done before. There were footplants in the skate series but those are more "sim" sort of games, or at least not infinite combo based gameplay. These mechanics are brand ass new, not even to mention that there's only like, what TWO unicycle games at all?? the other of which is a super nintentdo game about racing, so this makes Street Uni X the ONLY game about street unicycling. This is brand new uncharted, innovating shit in a genre people clearly still want to play even though the height of the genre was like 20 years ago. I think thps1+2 was the fastest thps game to sell 1 million copies, and there was at least enough demand for shit-scared activision to spend money on making 3+4. I have nothing to back this claim up but vibes but, Bom Rush Cyberfunk did really well. People still want these kind of games, god damnit!!
I'm honestly a bit baffled this game isn't way huger than it is, because it's basically fuckin perfect. I wonder how much of it's lack of hugeness is shitheel anti-woke gamergate descendent chuds stirring up culture war garbage by the fact that this game has and is developed by *gasp* a trans person. That's not even to get into the downtown level having anti-police and anti-capitalist AND pro-Palestinian graffiti in it (which fucking rocks). I really doubt those people even made it that far, if they tried this game to begin with. And good, dude, fuck those people. They should take a long walk off a short dick and no artist should give a fuck what they think. I feel like maybe Street Uni X being only available on PC and not home consoles could be more of a factor, but I also just wanted to mention the trans representation in the game as I think it's actually really fucking important. The console ports I am sure are a fuckin insane amount of both work and bureaucracy to navigate, so I'm not surprised those are still in the process of materializing. It happens when it happens. I think a lot of people also wanted it to be *exactly* like thps to fit their nostalgia escape fantasy and bounced off of it because it didn't fit their preconceived notions.
Street Uni X is the future, and you know it's really good because my only real criticism is that there's not more of it. I would love to see a dlc pack with some new levels, or maybe even a Street Uni X 2 with at least a create a rider option, so I can put myself in the game and make a music video out of the footage like an asshole lol. This game is so good that I think the water treatment plant will stand alongside hangar and warehouse as iconic first levels. Street Uni X nearly flawlessly accomplishes the heroic task of emulating the extreme sports games of the past while also innovating with new mechanics, and as a nice little bonus, much like the proverbial onion ring in the french fries, It also completely nails the fun upbeat vibe of the extreme sports games of the 2000's AND very clearly has had an absurd amount of heart and passion put into it. Street Uni X is such a pure expression of joy and passion for street unicycling it makes me want to cry.
In today's climate of the country in which I reside actively wanting me dead, logging onto the internet and seeing nothing but soulless AI slop garbage content shuffled in with video footage of the peak of human suffering caused by genocides committed with my tax dollars, when I booted up Street Uni X for the first time and that goofy ass garage emo punk came on and I rolled down the roll-in and jumped the kicker gap in water treatment plant, I felt like I was 8 years old playing THPS2, my favorite game ever, for the first time again. I cant say any of the clichés like "this game saved my life" or "this game changed me", but that feeling of freedom and infinite possibility is something most of us are lucky to get even once, and I felt it again. Nostalgia is always tinged with sadness for me that I cannot go back to those simpler times, but I would had never thought that it was possible to just bring those simpler times to the present. Also as a creative myself, the fact this game manages to exist at all is such a massive fucking inspiration that I am certain I will be thinking about for a long long time. To your average person a set of stairs with a barricade preventing it's use is at best an inconvenience and at worst an obstruction completely filtered out as background noise, something you walk by every day and never think about. To someone with stunt goggles on that same obstacle that was actively preventing your progress, now becomes a playground for endless movements and maneuvers. Even if you get broken off in the process, there are few feelings as good as landing that trick and riding away clean. I hope Street Uni X never stops pedaling.