"This Game Could Of Just A Little Bit Been Better"

Well, 3Xtreme's packaging looked promissing enough so hey, I'll just have to write a review on it instead of my home work. I think thats a good idea! Upon turning on the Grand-ol-PSX, I saw one of the coolest FMV's there is!

The FMV was just guy's doing, for lack of better words, bad-ass,dope, un-godly, and just plain SICK tricks. But the first one was a dinger. An olly over a post. But he screws the landing and cracks his head on the next post. I punched reset just to watch it again! Then most of the way through other guys on bikes, skate boards and blades were doing tricks, then they started to miss 'em, big time! My face was squinting in pain just watching! Then the last one, one guy does the worst possible thing you could do if you were trying to grind on a hand rail. Yup, you guessed it, miss and land on your... lets just put it as nads! Right on landed there. I think he was trying to do a board slide but he missed so bad! Then it all re-winds in a really fast move. Well, enough for the opening FMV, lets move on to the game.

I loved 2Xtreme so I love this game! It's almost the same, but there are new (and **way** better) tricks, tracks, and no snow boards. Which really sucks because I like snow boarding. No doubt 989 made up for it by putting in a really cool feature. Now, if you don't want to ride a bike and your friend does, just pick another character! There are over 20 of 'em that each have a diffrent 'ride. In the races, it's mixed. All3 kinds of racers race on one track. Bikes, blades, and boards.You can even buy equipment! If you don't like the way one board handles, buy a new one with the points you rack up when doing tricks! I'm not sure how many of each type of boards, bikes, or bades there is, but there is some where around 15 for each. Plus, there are special ones for special riders!

Lets move on to game play, shall we? OK, we will. Lets just put it this way, it's like NFS3 on a skate board. This handles so smoth no matter which rider you picked. This is important because they each have a set abilities rating. Its evened out. If your rider is fast, his turning will be a bit off. If he is big and heavy, then he's gonna be a bit slow. Ya follow my drift here? Good, if you don't then you need help.

The tricks on the other hand are just plain fun to do! There is no set trick formation. Unlike 2Xtreme, you had to push a pattern of buttons to pull off lame tricks. Now, you get more points for diffrent combos that you make up! Sure you can stick to your basic grabs. There are 5 diffrent ones. Throw in a flip or 360 and you got something new! If you wanted a Miller Flip then you just hold back+down and walla! Hold anything for and extended amout of time instead of just hitting the button onceand you get more points. The points are even displayed on the screen. So is the number of gates you've gone through.

The average points you get for pulling some combo is about 400=to 800 points. Thats good. And another addition I am greatly thankful for is the ability to grind on rails and soap boxes. There is just something about pulling 2 Miller Flips then landing on a VERY large hand rail to grind down on. It's just so much fun. Almost as fun as punching the crap outta the other player when hes just landing from pulling a trick off of a ramp. And they don't get the points for it either!

As for sound it's average. Nice sound of yells when people get knocked down and good texture with the wheels rolling over diffrent surfaces. Even the grinding sounds real. But one thing is a little off, the Dual Shock reaction. It seems a little off. When you hit a wall or land from a jump of anything like that of physical contact it shakes. Well, it does but it seems to be a bit delayed. Thats not bad, but its not too good. I guess thats maybe one of the flaws in this game. Although there really isn't any that I noticed.

Well, I was bound to tell you about graphics sooner or later, so lets make it short and sweet for the most part because the WWF is almost on. Nice textures on the riders and the surounding areas. Hills rolling off into the back set, and even houses! It's alll good in this game. One of the better parts is you can see the tricks being preformed! It's not just meshed together but it's smooth and looks almost real.

There are 4 modes of play: Time Trials, Season, Exibition, and Free Style. all of which are basicly the same. But in Free Stly, you only get 45 seconds to pull off as many tricks as possible.

One last thing before I sign off here, You can also race as aliens!! There is 3 of 'em, one on a skate board, one on a bike and the other on rollerblades. There is also a mummy, a Frankien-Stien like monster, and this other freaky-looking chick. You also get more special characters by beating the diffrent circuts and using diffrent eqiupment to win the game. Not to mention there are cars in this game! Red, white, and blue. Whats really funny is that they can grind rails, preform tricks, flips and spins-just like anyother character, but much faster!

Well, all in all this game is 'da bomb! It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly suggest you pick it up. It's a great game and is soo very fun. Good every thing.

Hmm... I'm going to have to give this an 8/10. Thats pretty good my my book. Only 2 10/10 games (FF7 and SO2).

Reviewer's Score: 8/10 | Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99

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