Tiny Space Bikers Ride to Rebuild their Space Ship

The story line in Chillingo's Space Bikers is that two miniature alien motorcyclists and an ATV rider have crash landed on Earth and they need your help rebuilding their space ship so they can go home.

Ride along with the wee aliens in this 3D platform game and help them navigate over obstacles such as cereal boxes, books, bookshelves and other obstacles to collect a variety of stuff ranging from cherries to clothes pins.

I'm not sure to what purpose, say, a golf ball is to a tiny alien, but there you have it. I also found the banjo-plucking, country-music soundtrack a bit odd but I admit that it's engaging.

Space Bikers has three modes: play, quick race and mini-games. You need to complete the play mode before the other modes will unlock.

The physics of Space Bikers are good, although they're a bit soft for me (not as responsive as I would like). The riders bounce around, slide and fold up like rag dolls when they fall and their vehicles are like that too. I encountered one bug: The rider was able to travel along a shelf with one wheel on top of a shelf and rider and the rest of bike hanging underneath.

You can control your speed to vary the vehicle's trajectory over jumps and the angle at which it lands. Land with the nose down and you'll do a face plant; land with the nose too far up and the vehicle will fall back on top of you.

Space Bikers has buttons to control the vehicle's direction, speed, braking and pitch as you navigate up and over obstacles. You also have the option of using the accelerometer to control the vehicle's pitch instead of buttons and I found motion control was far easier. One nice feature: You can move the buttons around the screen to place them wherever you might find them more intuitive.

Last, the graphics in Space Bikers are a mixed bag. Some objects are well rendered, others are a bit blocky, but overall, it's not bad looking.

Chillingo has put an introductory price of $0.99 on Space Bikers, which makes it a very good value compared to similarly price 3D platformers. The regular price is $2.99, which will probably come with the next update, which will include a fourth rider and additional levels.

Check Space Bikers out on YouTube: