When I saw the title of this game, I knew I had to try it. I mean, how can you go wrong with Hipster City Cycle? I’m happy to say, the game didn’t disappoint!
As anyone living in a large city knows, there are hipsters everywhere, and they’re usually on bikes. Well, that’s the entire premise of this game. You’re a hipster on a bike, now go be a hipster and do hipster things.
The game consists of riding your bike around a busy city. You have to dodge traffic, pedestrians, and other city-based obstacles. Along the way, you need to wave at the other hipsters to get Twitter followers, and collect items like tacos. By riding the courses, you’ll gain money and unlock new parts for your bike, which is quite customizable as to how you want to ride it. The more money you have, the more parts of the city you’ll be able to ride in. You can also have parties, of which I can’t tell you much about. No one ever showed up for mine (insert Forever Alone face here).
Hipster City Cycle’s controls are solid. You tilt the device to steer left or right, and alternately push the buttons in the corners to pedal faster, or both together to brake. When you brake, you can try to keep your bike steady without dropping your feet by tilting your phone. Right before you fall, just tap one of the circles to kick off and get going again. Also, if you pedal too fast, you’ll wear yourself out and have to stop (or coast) for a bit. Picking up tacos will increase your energy and help prevent this. That said, I never saw a need to pedal too much, as the levels are so busy it’s hard to keep track of what’s going on and avoid running in to anything. Don’t forget to wave at the other hipsters by tapping on them as you go by. Also, avoid tapping on business men, who will curse you out for being on a bike (too funny!).
The graphics and sound are extremely retro (as to be expected from the title), and it works great. There’s nothing quite like 8-bit mustaches to make you smile. A neat feature I think I caught was that the game somehow appears to save to your Game Center ID, meaning you won’t lose your save file if you change phones, or play on and iPad and iPhone, both. It would be awesome if more developers would do this.
In Conclusion
Overall, Hipster City Cycle is a cute little indie title that has a lot of appeal and replay value. It’s casual enough to be a good pick up and play title, but has enough to work toward to keep you coming back for more. I have no problem endorsing this great title. Be sure to pick it up!
