Ultimate Sky Surfer

"Only for Die Hard Extreme Sports Fans"

This was one of the first games that came out on PS2 and sadly one of the worst. The idea- jumping out of a plane and performing tricks before you get close enough to the ground to release your parachute could have been made into a very worthwhile and original game. Unfortunately it was not.

The controls for this game are nothing special. You take a while to get your surfer level and then perform a selection of about ten moves by pressing button combos. This is far too simple but is still a pain to execute. Also you only have a limited amount of time before you must release your parachute, spoiling the game even more. The parachute part where you have to guide your surfer to a target on the ground is also awkward to control with the changing wind direction. Unlike other extreme sports games, you do not have a wide range of characters. You can select from two males or a female. I have not noticed any difference in control between the three characters, they all perform the same moves and fall to the ground at the same speed. There are only three difficulty levels to choose from: Easy, Normal and Hard. There is not much difference in these settings and they are all very simple to complete.

The extra mini game on Sky Surfer is slightly more entertaining, but still very dull. You have to control your floating surfer into balloons that are at different heights within a time limit. There are several different levels to play but all of them are very easy.

The graphics on Sky Surfer are very poor for a PS2 game and could have been used on a Playstation one. There is not much to enhance graphics on because all there is to see are clouds and detail on the characters. The music is also dull and almost unnoticeable. This game is no Tony Hawk or Mat Hoffman but could have been a top extreme sports title if it was done by Activision.

This game has no replay value because once you have completed it even on the hardest difficulty setting in a few hours there is nothing to do or unlock. This game is not worth getting unless you can find it for under $5. Only die hard extreme sports fans would want to buy Sky Surfer because the quality of it is that poor.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/15/03, Updated 06/15/03