2 Xtreme

"I don't think it would make you throw up"

INTRO

On Christmas morning I received many presents, but the very first one I opened was in the shape of a square wrapped in green and red paper. I opened it eagerly only to be amazed at the sight of my second Playstation game (FF7 was the other PSX game), which had a big title of 2XTREME in red. I looked at the back as I usually do in most games and it looked pretty fun. It had skateboarding, snowboarding, rollerblading, and mountain biking. What else could you ask for in a game with sports/racing genre? Well I was so excited, but first I played FF7 because I was much more exicted with that. After that, I inserted my 2xtreme game and prepared for a not so good thrill. At first I liked the game and it seemed pretty fun, but as I continued to play it I got the hang of it that I don't really like it. It's not bad, but it is definitely no where near of what I call a great game. 2xtreme is a sports/racing game made by Sony in the year of 1996 when the Playstation first came out. If you cannot tell what Christmas I got these 2 games at, then I'll tell you. I got 2xtreme in the Christmas of 1997 so I've had 2xtreme for a pretty long time. If only the game could be better. I'll describe everything about the game throughout the rest of this. The only thing left I have to say is that it had good ideas, but Sony failed miserably.

STORY: (N/A)

Well, the only real thing about this story is to get #1 and be the best skater or biker or inline skater or snowboarder. No story really, just race.

GAMEPLAY: (5/10)

Unfortunately, 2xtreme is not a very good game and it's barely average. There are 4 different sports to do which I have stated above. Although unlike most games of this genre, 2xtreme is racing and the tricks are very poor. A total of 10 people are allowed on the course and there is punching and kicking all the way to the finish line. Yes, the game is very brutal. There are many bad things about this game which make it horrible. One is the lack of tricks. Each trick is easy to execute and the same tricks are used for every different sport. The maximum amount of points you can receive with a trick is 250 points. Not very good. The scoring system is also very bad. You can finish the race in 9th place and do a lot of tricks and pass through many gates causing you to overall be better than a person who got in 6th place. This is only used for season mode. There aren't even many modes in the game. There is a create a player mode, but that is pretty pointless. All you do is choose a character that is normally in the game and you just change his/her stats. You can also just race for fun and practice on your skill while you just race. The season mode is just where you do every race, but in a different sequence and it's like a tournament with places and everything. This game can be played with 1 or 2 players. The levels are different for each sport. You snowboard in Japan, skateboard in L. A. , blade in Las Vegas, and bike in Africa. The tricks range from an ollie to a flip. I guess this would be OK for it's time, but there were more tricks on games for the SNES or Sega. In a race, there are a lot of pick ups that can help you to victory such as extra speed, extra strength, extra hops, extra health, to name a few. There are gates which if you go through you get more points. There is also a health meter underneath the speedometer. If you get hit too much you fall over. A bad and very annoying thing about getting knocked down is it takes too long to get back up. To get the pickups in a race, you have to go through a gate with a symbol of that item. There is also a bonus track which I have only experienced once. It's very hard to get and I got it from the 2nd course of L.A. .The bonus course is just a bunch of ramps along the path allowing yopu to do tricks and get more points. Within each level, there are 3 courses so there is a total of 12 different types of places you can go to. That's pretty much everything I can think of explaining about 2xtreme. This is much different than the prequel 1xtreme.

CONTROLS: (5/10)

The controls are also rather horrible. All the buttons are usable in this game. The top buttons are for the use of items and the other two are for attacking. Then the rest are all messed up. You have to hold O if you want to go faster and if you hold X then you just pedal, skate, etc. The controls itself are weird. The movement is rather slow depending on the difficulty you choose. It seems that the other people are going faster then you and this is for every difficulty. I think it's like that for every racing game. If a guy is behind you then he immediately gets in front of you. The tricks are easy to execute. The easy trick is 2 buttons, the two medium tricks are 3 buttons and the best trick is 4 buttons. Other than that there is nothing else to say about the controls. The buttons are whacked and the movement is weird thus giving the score a 5.

MUSIC/SOUND: (7/10)

Not bad, but definitely could've been better. The music is rock with no lyrics so you won't hear any songs by any band. It's just music. The music perfectly fits well with the settings and the mood of this game. If you skate down a street in L.A. you don't expect to hear country. The different themes are each fine in there own way so none is better than the other. If there was more of a variety of the music then this game would've been better. As for the sounds. They were OK, nothing great. The sounds weren't as clear as possible, but they were clear none the less. The grunts of the people all sounded the same even for the girl. They weren't as detailed as much as it could've been so that's why I just see it at average. For Christ sakes, this is Sony they should ahve an excellent music and sound department. I'm very disappointed with the way the audio came up from this game. Don't get me wrong. I think the music is fine, but it's not as good as it could've been.

GRAPHICS: (7/10)

The graphics in 2xtreme aren't that bad for the time it was made. The levels don't look extremely great, but they look like they had some time spent on it. The timezone changes as well. If you are on a different course some way to make it look more different is making one night and the other two day. The people seriously look like <censored word>. There faces are totally blocky and in fact you can't even see their faces. The characters all look the same but with different colored shirts and shorts. The backgrounds are somewhat detailed. You can tell the difference between the courses. Course #1 has a different set up than course #2. The coloring was kind of boring. Nothing really colorful and enlightening. Overall, I think the graphics are pretty good, but if the graphics departement team spent a little more time on making the people look better then it would've been a success.

CHALLENGE: (9/10)

What a hard game!? Sometimes I can't stand playing it. There are 4 different difficulties: Rookie, Veteran, Pro, and Extreme. The weird thing about this game is the maximum speed limit changes with each difficulty. For example, Rookies can only go 40 mph, Veterans can only go 55mph, Pros can only go 70mph, and Extremers can only go about 85 mph. I think that is what makes it hard. What else is dumb is that the computer always go faster then you when they are behind you. Also, even if you have 100 on endurance for stats you can still get knocked down in one punch or kick. This is very unfair for the players and very eady for the computer. Overall, this is a very challenging game and I guarantee you, you will get very mad at this game at some points because the computer is too cheap and I can't take it anymore.

REPLAY: (7/10)

Thankfully and miraculously this game has good replay value. I think the replay value is a little bit above average. This game can be very fun when playing with 2 people. Exhibition mode is always there for you if you don't want to do the whole season. I think every game like this has a good replay so I'm not surprised to say this game has a good replay value. The only thing I can think of replaying is when with 2 players. Well, other than that there isn't much to do unless you want to try and get that bonus course. Also, Exhibition is fun for awhile. That's all I can say about the replay value.

PROS
- 4 different vehicles to ride and do tricks on
- Good music

CONS
- Too hard
- No variety, nothing new (biking is same as skating)
- Choppy graphics
- Bad controls

OVERALL: (5/10)

Overall, I think this game isn't that bad. To me it's an average game with a couple of mistakes, but every game has one right? I think that atleast everyone should give this game a shot and try it out. Please do not buy it, because I personally think you'll blow off $20 but definitely rent it and then buy it if you want. I got it for a Chrsitamas present and I didn't give it back and I still have it today. It's not a bad game. It just has many flaws, but it's actually fun at times. Have a nice day!

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 08/26/00, Updated 08/26/00