Shred! 2 - ft Sam Pilgrim

My first instinct when I loaded this up was to compare it to Trials, and honestly, that instinct is half right and half wrong. The 2.5D layout and the star-gated progression feel familiar, but the second you drop into your first run, the engine underneath is a different beast entirely. There is no motor to bail you out. The whole game is built around momentum management, specifically the pumping mechanic, where you press and hold a button to drive the bike into the ground on the downslope and release it on the upswing to carry speed through a jump. Get the timing right and you flow through a course like you are actually riding. Get it wrong and you bleed speed at the worst possible moment, grind to a crawl on a slight uphill, and restart. The trick system is where the fun really opens up. Left stick handles front and back flips, a shoulder button fires off 360s and 180s, and the right stick in eight directions gives you access to grabs and body-varial moves like Superman. Tricks are snappy and satisfying to land, and the combo potential is real if you can keep your momentum up long enough to string them together. The campaign runs through five distinct worlds - a tutorial Trail Centre, High Alpine, the UK, the USA, and a physics-playground finale called The Zone - across 40-plus hand-crafted levels split between Downhill, Slopestyle, Big Mountain, and Street disciplines. Each level packs multiple objectives covering both speed and style, which gives replayability a genuine reason to exist beyond chasing leaderboard times. Bike selection adds a layer of depth that goes beyond cosmetics. Official Canyon models like the Stitched 360, the Spectral, and the Sender each carry their own stat spread covering speed and spin rate, which matters when a challenge specifically asks for a multi-rotation backflip or a personal best split. The unlockable roster also includes some deliberately silly contraptions - mini bikes, tandems - which keeps the tone light and approachable rather than sim-serious. The soundtrack is genuinely good, upbeat and well-matched to the speed of the riding. Sam Pilgrim voices himself, which is charming in concept but limited in execution since the same handful of lines loop on a short rotation. Here is where the honest stuff comes in. The momentum system that makes the highs feel so good is also the source of most of the frustration. Losing speed on a modest uphill because a pump input did not register, or having the bunnyhop and pump share the same button and misfire, is a genuine friction point that shows up regularly enough to matter. Occasional physics clipping and one or two buggy environmental interactions round out the roughness. Visually it is functional, not flashy - the environments have variety but the character model is basic and Pilgrim himself is basically a generic rider with his name attached. There is also no multiplayer of any kind, local or online, which means the "four friends on the couch" scenario is entirely off the table here. This is a solo game, full stop. For casual players who just want to blast through a few runs, the gentle difficulty curve and the pick-up-and-play control scheme do their job. For completionists, the 200-plus objectives across all levels provide a solid chunk of content. Steam users who have reviewed it sit at a strong positive consensus, which tracks with my experience - the core loop, when it clicks, is legitimately fun. Just go in knowing this is a small indie title with mobile roots, not a AAA MTB showcase.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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