Bridge Constructor Stunts Review (Xbox One)

Introduction

The Bridge Constructor series puts you in the shoes of a professional bridge builder tasked with creating safe, sustainable bridges in hostile environments. However, in Bridge Constructor Stunts, you use your engineering skills to create ramps and jumps, all while racking up style points.

Bridge Constructor Stunts is available for $9.99 USD on the Xbox Live Marketplace and Steam, and for $1.99 on iOS.

Gameplay

In Bridge Constructor Stunts, your objective is to fulfill each puzzle's requirement and reach the flag at the end of the level. This may involve collecting a certain number of stars, or performing a specific amount of flips.

To complete each puzzle, you must first construct a stable bridge using materials such as wood, steel and wire cables. The editor is simple to use on console, and the grid backdrop makes it easy to create a neat, even structure.

After testing the integrity of your creation, it's time to drive your car and pull off some stunts. Your control over the vehicle is limited, as you can only move forwards. Cars handle with a certain "weight" to them, and although it's pretty easy to pull off a flip flying through the air, it can sometimes be tricky to perform the exact stunt you're trying to complete.

On top of the green stars some puzzles ask you to collect, there's golden bolts placed in precarious places made to incentivize multiple playthroughs after finishing a course's primary objective. Bridge Constructor Stunts' scoring system also encourages players to tackle familiar tracks in new ways in order to earn a top score.

Puzzles become increasingly difficult as the game progresses, with a pretty significant difficulty spike midway through. Despite the opening levels being simplistic and childish, the rest of the game is anything but, to the point that a player of any age will find challenge in later tracks.

Presentation

The visuals in Bridge Constructor Stunts are basic and arcadey. The game runs fine on an Xbox One, and the smooth physics engine ensures your explosive runs look good if you decide to re-watch them with the in-game clip recorder.

The sound effects are suitable, but the music becomes repetitive and irritating after 30 minutes of building. Bridge Constructor Stunts is best experienced casually listening to an album or a podcast in the background, rather than with the built-in game audio which is thankfully adjustable.

Value

With 33 levels, some of which take a mere 90 seconds to complete, Bridge Constructor Stunts feels justified at its $2.99 mobile price point. But on console, $9.99 is a lot of money for what feels like a watered-down puzzle game.

The promise of getting to pull off "insane" vehicular stunts is delivered on somewhat, but the game's enthusiasm for what boils down to animated explosions and car flipping feels forced. The "stunt" aspect of Bridge Constructor Stunts is unrealized, and feels like a gimmick instead of a major component.

Conclusion

Bridge Constructor Stunts is a short, mildly amusing puzzle game. The free-form building allows you to try out any sort of crazy solution you can come up with. But with only a handful of puzzles, the experience feels hollow and bare-bones.

Priced fairly, its bite-sized puzzles could have been viewed as a neat little construction game. But there's not nearly enough content to compete with other $10 arcade titles on Xbox Live.