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Xtreme Sports
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Graphics & Sound:
Xtreme Sports has its ups and downs in the graphics department. While the backgrounds are absolutely scintillating, the character design seems drab at best. The breathtaking realism of the mountains while you snowboard, or the glint of the sun off the camera lens as you speed-glide is enough to make any graphical aficionado go nuts while playing. The characters on the other hand, are simple at best, with their non-expressive faces and their two color outfits. 'Two color outfits you say?' Well this is Xtreme Sports! I want to see threads so bright that my eyes bleed! It's the little stuff like that that makes XS a little disillusioning. The snowboards, ATV's, etc. look appropriately Xtreme (they even make the tire or snow board tracks!), but some of the tricks that you can do on each 'vehicle' respectively look like they could've used a bit more time on them. For instance, when you stand on the seat of the ATV, your character actually takes a baby step onto the seat, then another smaller baby step, and instantly sits down, all in less than two seconds! Aside from these small flaws, the only other complaint I have is in the two-player mode. You're snowboarding along, racing your friend and up ahead is a big snowy hill to which you tell yourself ' I will catch air on this.' Nope. Once you get over the hill, a previously un-rendered rock the size of China pops out, you bust your head, and there was no fair warning...I guess this popping effect is the result of Innerloop trying not to slow down the frame rate of Xtreme Sports in two player mode. Good idea, but a tree coming out of nowhere, smashing your sternum quickly makes you depreciate the fast frame rate. The sound, on the other hand, is exceptional with few miscues. A beautiful pseudo-Egyptian techno styled music intertwines itself among the snowy peaks and the sunny skies. A great feature that Innerloop added to XS is an option to loop any of the songs to play on any given event. So if you figure that one of the default songs isn't particularly 'Mountain-bike' enough, then you can go change it in the music loop option and voila, your 'Mountain-bike' music every time you race. Sadly though, I think the wonderful music might be a bit 'soft' for an Xtreme type of game. It's slightly jazzy and mellow. A game like this needs riveting guitars and the like. The voice acting is pretty good at best, but quickly becomes aggravating. The only time you hear the voice acting is when you choose a character. They say something in their native language that is summed up to mean 'groovy, cool, Xtreme, etc.' There is an announcer while you do tricks on the courses, but he becomes a pain in the rump with 'Awesome,' and 'Way to go' every five seconds! Not much variation, not that variation could save his agitating voice anyway.
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Gameplay:
Options galore is what Xtreme Sports boasts, but it really isn't anything too thrilling. A young (or older) Xtremist can strap on their virtual gear and hit the slopes, snowboard in hand. The purpose of the game is to snowboard a quick little course. At the end of the snow-capped course, you jump aboard a hang-glider and frustratingly try to make your way to your waiting ATV. I never made it to the ATV, because while you are up in the air, you have no idea where to go and where to land for the ATVs. I would usually end up crashing, to which the aggravating commentary of 'YOU FAILED' would pierce my house's quiet air again and again. During these races, you do one of three tricks that get you boost power. With this newly acquired boost power, you can go faster with the touch of a Dreamcast controller button. Kind of like using 93-octane gas on your snowboard. This boost principle applies to every aspect of the racing. You can boost while hang-gliding, Mountain-bike riding, etc. My problem with this is you can only do three tricks (some of the tricks are so lame, I would say two-and-a-half tricks for some events) per event. The events are snowboarding, Mountain-bike, ATV, hang-gliding, bungee jumping, and skysurfing. Also, to do a trick, you have to do a D-pad combination comparable to that of Tekken Tag. After the combination, you hit the 'trick button,' and you suddenly find yourself watching one of three tricks that you will have to tirelessly do the remainder of the course to get boost power. If this is too hard for you to pull off, then there's a Practice Mode. I found that I spent more time in Practice Mode, because there wasn't an irritating time limit that made you automatically lose if you run out of time. I really don't understand the time limit, because it allows for virtually no mistakes or you run out of time. There's a Single Track Mode (a.k.a. 2-player), which implements the same hounding time limit! I understand the time limit in Championship Mode, but for two players to not finish because 'Time's Up' is ridiculous. My friend and I played twice and were immediately disenchanted with the ever-conquering limit. I want a game that is fun to race and do Xtreme stuff, not one that is high on 'Frustration Factor,' which sadly this game is. The fact that there are only four characters to choose from makes the game really shallow as far as characters are concerned. You end up racing the three same people every race, and that gets boring quick. Of course, to take out your pent-up anger, you can punch your fellow racers to which they respond with a 'uumph,' and little or no damage or speed loss. |
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Difficulty:
If the unrefined controls weren't so well, unrefined, then this game could be a lot more understandable. I say understandable, because it wouldn't necessarily be easier, but at least I would feel like I'm controlling my character. The controls in XS seem to react two seconds after you want them to. For instance, if you see a big rock up ahead, don't try and dodge it when you get there, because two seconds after you push the 'brake' button, WHAM, rock pie in your face. The time limit is a joke because it's so hard. It's not undefeatable, but it leaves little or no margin of error. I'm not asking for an overly easy game, but I would like something that is enjoyable...For those of you Xtremists that can stand the 'test of time' successfully, a Pro Mode is made available in the Options Menu which makes the computer racers a bit tougher to beat.
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Game Mechanics:
Innerloop's Xtreme Sports does have its good point besides the beautiful background scenery. It takes very little VMU space! Again, the controls make the controller feel like you're competing with a burnt out hull of a '79 Pinto (even with the Analog pad). The load times are absolutely brutal, and it loads after everything, so you get the nice quality of extended load time happening every two seconds it seems. Riot Rundown: I can see that Xtreme Sports had potential, but it seems like the things that would have made it fun were left out. Don't get me wrong; it's a pretty game that can be addictive, especially to extreme sports fans, but my mouth was dry after a couple of hours with it. The 6-sport idea is awesome, but subsequently, snowboarding was the only race that was addictive or fun to play; but if I wanted a great snowboarding game, I would have stuck to SSX Snowboarding for PS2. Two of the sports (bungee jumping, sky-surfing) are locked, and will require painstaking amounts of time to unlock. The tricks are difficult to pull off and the buttons get mixed up too easily. Yet at the same time, the trick combos aren't worth learning due to how un-inspiring they look. There could have been so much more. Again, a classic case of quantity over quality. |
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-Sydney Riot, GameVortex Communications AKA Will Grigoratos |
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