Disney Sports Skateboarding

"Disney + Skateboarding = Pain"

Disney Sports Skateboarding is a game I got for FREE with my GC at my local Toys R Us, as well as Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee. After playing this game, I must tell you that it probably took Disney and Konami TWO AND A HALF HOURS to make this game and nothing more.

Graphics:
The best part.

Yep, the graphics are the best part of this entire game. Ironically, that doesn't say much. Each character has only two animations per action, each of which have two frames. The collision detection is terrible and everything looks like it belongs on the N64.

Each character looks exactly like their Disney counterparts, which is a plus, but each character also has almost no animations whatsoever, and almost no frames to go with these animations. The animations also are poorly animated and repetitive.

Everything else in the game has no animations AT ALL, except for the fact that the goal points rotate, which is just plain lazy. Not only do these things have no animations, but they have very few colors, and all look the same, dull, and uninspired.

The buildings have only ONE texture, which also looks like it belongs on the N64, and the effects are something anybody could do easily using Photoshop, only the Photoshop users effects would look better.

And the level design is absolutely terrible. I could have thought of better ideas and designs off the top of my head.

And even with all this, the frame rate is absolutely terrible. It is a true programming disaster when you can have graphics this bad on a system this good and still have a terrible frame rate.

Overall, the graphics are boring, bland, dull, lazily done, and uninspired. They are also the best part. 5/100

Sounds:
MUTE BUTTON. NOW.

All of your favorite Disney characters are doing the voice acting in this game! That must mean it will be good, right?

WRONG. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

Yep, all your favorite Disney characters are voiced by their actual voice actors, but each character only has TWO LINES per action. This gets annoying extremely fast, but adding to your fury is the "announcer", who is the most annoying, most least cool, most terrible person in the entire game. The announcer not only sounds like a complete idiot, but whoever did his voice needs to be shot, and whoever wrote his lines needs to be burned. Let's see some samples:

-To Mickey: "Whassup, Kitty Cat?"
-After you do a 50/50 Grind: "Fifty Fifty GgGrRrIiInNnDdD!" (You have to hear it to hear how annoying it is, trust me.)
-At random times: "Whoa, little doggy, slow down!"
-When you mess up: "What the hell am I doing?"

You have to hear him to hear how mind-numbingly annoying he is.

And the music...oh my god...repetitive tunes that consist of about FIVE endlessly looping notes that NEVER match the mood and sound terrible.

Overall, this game is a reason we should thank God for mute buttons. 5/100

Story:
Not available.

You, as one of the Disney stars, must preform tricks and achieve miscellaneous goals while riding your skateboard through different stages so you can get high ratings for your television show.

At least, that's what you think it is. You see, in reality, there is NO story. 0/100

Gameplay:
None.

This would be so much easier to review if there WAS any gameplay. Whatever, I'll try to review this non existent category.

The game contains 40 different simplistic tricks that you'll find are impossible to pull off. In most of the modes, pulling off these tricks gains you points, but it seems you get more points for the "easy" tricks and less points for the nigh impossible ones.

I will now explain each mode to you in detail:

Challenge Mode: In this mode, you must go through one of the aforementioned bland, uninspired stages and do all of the following things within the time limit so you can get a high enough rank to pass:

- Collect over 500 crystals
- Find all 5 check points
- Destroy 5 objects
- Get a high enough score by doing tricks

This could be so much easier if it wasn't for the fact that the level design is far too complex for a kid's game (Yet still boring. Heh.), and that the objects are almost impossible to reach, and that you still have to get to the goal, and that the time limit is far too low and that the controls are terrible and unresponsive. All of this makes achieving your goal way, way, way too frustrating, and there are plent of times where you'll get all 5 checkpoints and reach the goal, but won't have a high enough score to pass.

Trick Championship: This mode has two-player capabilities as well, but good luck finding someone who will WANT to play it with you. Both of these are one-hundred percent impossible, as your computer opponents will somehow get over five-hundred thousand points in SIXTY seconds EVERY round. You don't even get to see how your opponents manage this, as no matter how good of a gamer you are, you'll always get less than fifty thousand TOTAL in both rounds. How the hell can you get five-hundred thousand points on ONE ramp in sixty seconds? It's not possible!

Training: Instead of an actual tutorial, all Training Mode is is a giant course that you can do tricks on. But guess what? If you do EVERY TRICK IN THE GAME in FIVE MINUTES on this course, you get rewarded with a picture! But I promise you that not only is achieving this impossible, but it's not worth it. The picture is the same one that you'll find on the cover.

Free Ride: Ride through the Challenge stages without having to worry about a time limit. No high scores or unlockables make playing this worthless, as the challenge stages aren't fun to begin with.

Time Attack: Same as above only with a time limit. Can this game get any worse?

Oh yes, and top all those off with the world's worst camera, one that will find itself either stuttering in a corner, lost and spinning around in circles, or above you. Add the crappy framerate, overly bright graphics, and the world's worst physics system and...yeesh. 0/100

Length and Difficulty:
Too much. Far too much.

This game will likely last you a good 15 minutes before you throw it into the fireplace, and if you want to know how difficult is, read the gameplay section. 0/100

Controls:
Sorry, no response.

The control scheme consists of seemingly simple controls that you will find take a full minute to actually respond correctly, a really crappy camera that never cooperates, and so much more that I won't bother to describe how absolutely frustrating the controls are. 0/100

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And... RECAP!

Pros and Cons:
+ Characters have good voice acting, except for the announcer.
- Abysmal graphics.
- THE ANNOUNCER.
- The terrible 5-note "music".
- The lack of any animations or sound effects.
- No story.
- For a game so graphically bad, it also has a really sluggish frame rate.
- Controller breaking, Gamecube smashing difficulty.
- Terrible controls and gameplay.
- A really crappy camera.

Final Scores:
Graphics: The best part. 5/100
Sounds: MUTE BUTTON. NOW. 5/100
Story: Not available. 0/100
Gameplay: None. 0/100
Length and Difficulty: Too much. Far too much. 0/100
Controls: Sorry, no response. 0/100

FINAL VERDICT:
Overall, this game is the worst Gamecube title to date, with almost nothing positive to say about it. 2/100

Buy, Rent, or Run Over:

Run over every copy you can find with a monster truck, no matter how devoted a Disney fan you are.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 08/02/04