3Xtreme

"Perhaps the worst extreme sports game ever.."

Apparently everyone wants to jump on the extreme sports bandwagon, because obviously it's making tons of money, especially with the release of the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games. Some are good, and some are bad. 3Xtreme is REALLY bad.

Gameplay:
You basically choose from 3 extreme sports: Blading, biking and skating. This sounds pretty cool at first, but then you get to playing the game. The game is just horrible. Grinding is a joke. You go WAY too slow on the rails, and it's almost impossible to pull combos. But if you happen to pull a combo, you'll realize how unrealistic the game really is. There's no real variety in the moves that you pull, because of the sloppy controls it's hard to do the very difficult moves. Like, I try to do a backflip and a 360 tail whip at the same time, and I end up waiting in line. First I get the air for about 5 seconds, which ruins the entire point of the combo, then I do the backflip, then it does the tail whip, but mid way through the whip, I end up eating it because of the whole line. I want to pull a backflip-tail whip, not a backflip...then a tail whip. Also, the racing in 3Xtreme is way too slow. It takes too long for you to accelerate, so if I'm trying to make a jump and before I get there,I eat it, I'll totally miss getting any air when I jump, even if I'm about 10 seconds from actually hitting the the ramp. Oh, it's also fun to fall into a gap I couldn't see.

Graphics:
Crap. Oh, this game is terrible to look at. The player models look too shoddy. It's like I died and went back to 1995. The bikes look disfigured, the blades look like big blocks of cheese, and the boards look like concrete. The entire environment looks like cardboard cutouts. It's a terrible eyesore.

Sound:
You'll find the groans and moans of the ''racers'' extremely annoying, since they have about two different types of ''ughs''. The music is a terrible collection of rock, and grinding doesn't even sound like grinding, more like riding on snow.

Controls:
The controls are sloppy. I hate trying to pull combos, when the trick buttons (all 4 of them) are on the back. In order to accelerate, I have to hold the X button, which is tedious. Plus there's about 4 basic moves to pull and then there's the ''advanced'' moves, the impossible ones. Seriously, try doing a move that sounds nice while holding the X button, trying to jump, and pressing 6 different buttons in order to pull 1 move. You're going to eat it.

Story:
There is none. A bunch of ''extreme racers'' trying to out do the other.

Overall:
Total crap. Don't even stare at this game, you might go blind. The graphics are horrible, the gameplay is too whacked to do anything, and the overall presentation of the game wreaks of my toilet. Honestly, don't play this game, you might die.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 05/07/03, Updated 05/07/03