Beach King Stunt Racer

Not often do you come across a game as confusing as Beach King Stunt Racer. In this 2003 “racing” game developed by Davilex, you’ll be asked to perform tricks and find collectibles as you seek to impress the “babe” of that stage. It’s quite simple, really. If you’d like to learn a bit more about this bodacious, yet heinous game, feel free to continue reading.

Babes, Beaches, and Bros

If there is anything Beach King Stunt Racer did right, it’s the theme music. This game screams the beach theme around every corner. The music, the stages, the characters -- all match the theme. You’ll first have access to three unnamed beach bros to choose between. Each one is fully fitted in chill beach garb, ready to hit the sand at a moment’s notice. Along with their beach style comes their token beach vehicle. It’s a bit hard to tell exactly what sort of vehicles these are. They seem to be either a four-wheeler, dune buggy, or jeep. Each car drives somewhat similar, so pick whatever vehicle you’re vibing with at the time.

I was surprised to see that each character boasts their own signature trick. This is performed in the game once the crown meter is filled in the bottom-right. They give you a load of points, which you’ll later find out is very important in this “racing” game.

After choosing your character and their assigned beach vessel, you’ll be able to choose your babe. That’s right -- your babe. In this game, stages are represented by a single babe. Your goal is to impress the babe enough to where they become infatuated with you, allowing you to pass the stage. Something tells me this game wouldn’t have been made in 2021. The babes are linked to – you guessed it – beaches around the world. Each beach is considered a stage, with three different areas to explore in each one. To unlock more stages, you’ll need to impress the babes.

You’re My Beach King Baby

One of the first things I noticed about Beach King Stunt Racer was the music. Davilex must have created their own soundtrack. The music misses pretty badly for the most part, but the theme music in my opinion, is great. It reminds me of 90’s techno. If you played the old Daytona USA or Killer Instinct games, you might find this theme as catchy as I did. The other music in the game, not so much.

For a game that released on the PC and PS2, it surely didn’t take advantage of the software. The graphics are a bit outdated, looking more like a PS1 game. The game does run smoothly, so at least it has that going for it.

Fighting and Bicycle

To impress the babes, you’ll need to bring your A game. And no, I don’t mean your racing game. In fact, there’s little to no racing in Beach King Stunt Racer. In this game, the babes only enjoy high octane car stunts. You drive your little buggy around, ramping off walls and jumps, and collecting coins that add to your score. To impress the babe on that stage, you’re given a set amount of time to reach a score limit. You’re also tasked with finding 7 diamonds littered around the stage. So, I guess the babes enjoy stunts and diamonds.

My best comparison to this game is a poor man’s Tony Hawk with cars. As you fly off of jumps and walls, you can press a series of buttons to perform tricks. I found the controls to be confusing, with my car usually just flailing around in the air before crashing down and ruining my point streak. In fact, the controls will often have you scratching your head. For instance, you can glide on two wheels if you press is a certain direction twice while driving. However, it’s not possible to hold that and guide where you’re going. So more often than not, I was just running into the wall.

Pros:

• Nailed the beach theme
• Runs smoothly
• The theme music is killer

Cons:

• Outdated graphics, even on the PC for 2003
• Music and sound are below average in general
• Only 4 racers/cars and 4 levels (12 stages in total)
• No racing, only stunts
• Lack of imagination with levels

There are some games out there that are made with great intention, a lot of love and care, and that make lasting impressions on the minds of its players. A game like this often defies genre – it doesn’t have to be a story-rich narrative, a high-stakes FPS, or a detailed RPG. It can be any one of those or even a combination of each one and more (though its hard to advise trying to make that become a reality because it would quickly become a mess). Beach King Stunt Racer is not one of those games. I think the core idea behind it is there – win each race, complete each challenge, and get the girl – but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. On top of that, this is hardly a game that you’ll get anyone to recognize through its name or even the images available. Its low-quality, easy to forget, and now even harder to find.

Race on the Beach

Realistically, this game isn’t all that bad. It just lacks a lot of the finer details of better games that make it something special. The core of this game revolves around performing stunt on the beach in a sort of buggy, chaining them together mid air (similar to the Skate series), and scoring the most points. You’ll also be going around collecting diamonds and other power ups around the track that help you pull off different stunts or gain more affection for the person you’re trying to win over. I think that was the weirdest part of the game to me.

While, yes, the focus is on the stunts, the actual goal was to woo the guy/girl during each level by collecting diamonds and heart pickups. Completing tricky stunts would also work, while failing one would net you nothing (though you couldn’t lose any either). Generally, you had around 9 minutes to get in as many tricks as possible, though some beaches/challenges reduced that. The main problem was that the idea was under-executed compared to similar titles of the time. LEGO Xtreme stunts did a great job of tying different tracks/minigames together by comparison – these beaches/tracks were just thrown into a game that was repetive the whole way through. Sure, you could collect coins in some levels, but that was about the only difference.

A Basic Look

I think what made this even worse is the fact that the animations, sound design, and controls were equally poor. The best of these were the graphics – for 2003, it was honestly forgivable, if a bit stiff, though certainly paled by comparison to even Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit & Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, which were released before this game’s 2003 release. The sounds were crunchy, droning, and plain hard to listen to.

Bottom Line

That’s all that needs to be said and shouldn’t have been a problem for its time. Last, the controls were floaty and off at best. They were fun to some extent, brining in some fun phsyics rather than being too realistic, but it honestly hurt more while trying to finish stunts that it helped.

Pros:

• Fun stunts
• Unique courses
• Some good music/setups overall

Cons:

• Poor controls
• Graphics subpar
• Gameplay quickly grows repetitive/underwhelming