3Xtreme
Reviewed by Inkhands
I'll just begin this review with a very quick story. Not
long ago I was looking out my front door. It was just a mere
glance, but something caught my eye. It was a black, square
object and it was lying in the middle of the road that
passes by my house. It looked to be something of value, but
either way I knew it needed to be moved, otherwise a car
would run over it. I went outside and I picked it up and it
looked to be some kind of case. I opened one of the pockets
and the first thing I found was a couple of memory cards.
When I checked the larger pocket, I found it to be filled
with nearly ten Playstation games. There was no name,
address, or phone number as to who it belonged to. The only
thing I do know for sure about whoever it was, is that they
had very poor taste in games, as 3Xtreme was one of the
games included in the collection of mediocre games that the
black case contained.
I usually enjoy sports game. I also usually enjoy sports
variety games. 3xtreme contains three so called extreme
sports - rollerblading, skateboarding, and bicycling. The
major flaw with this game is the fact that neither of the
sports come off as being either original or enjoyable. In
fact they are all nearly carbon copies of each other. They
all use the same characters as competition and there is a
very limited selection of tracks. There are a few modes in
this game - exhibition, time trial, freestyle, and season
mode. The freestyle allows you to run around and earn as
many points as you can in a limited amount of time. The time
trial and exhibition modes are both fairly self explantory.
The season mode is probably supposed to be the centerpiece
of the game, but it falls flat on many levels.
First off you choose a player to use through the entire
season. You have as options a couple of skateboards, three
bicyclers, and a couple of rollerbladers. There are also a
few characters you have to unlock before you can use. You
start out in the amateur circuit. There are six tracks to
race, but there are only three courses in the circuit. Which
means you play all three of them and then you play all three
of them again. At the end of each race you earn points and
you have to have a certain amount of points to continue the
game. Along the way you can pull off a few tricks by jumping
off the ramps that are found nearly every where on the
track. The moves feel very limited as you really have only a
small selection of flips and turns to choose from. There are
also numerous posts which form a gate you can move through
for extra points.
For the most part you bounce off walls, but occasionally
running into some of them will knock your player down. Also,
the other players will try to knock you down. That's okay,
because you can fight back, just hit either the L2 or R2
button and you will slap whoever is standing to the left or
right of you. This isn't as fun as it sounds and all it
usually does is slow your game down. The game moves quite
slowly even if you don't take part in any fighting. At best
you will only be moving 50MPH. The players are usually quite
stiff and the moves are nothing amazing. The best thing of
the entire game to me is the ability to jump on the rails as
you are going down a set of steps. This will run up your
points of course, but essentially it's the only thing that
feels remotely creative or enjoyable about an otherwise very
mediocre game. The game play is very repetitive as no matter
which sport you choose, you still race the same courses, and
you still do essentially the same types of moves. There is
no variety in the control between the three sports. Riding a
bicycle through the course feels exactly like skateboaring
or rollerblading. Very slow and stiff.
There are quite a few graphical glitches in the game.
Sometimes you will walk through a post for example. I
believe the word for the type of the backgrounds in the game
is prerendered, but I'm not quite sure. I'm not exactly good
with technical terms when I speak of video games. The three
courses I did play are not extremely great looking. There is
a downhill course that appears to be beside of a lake. There
is also a course filled with dark tunnels. Also, you have a
long trek through a bright looking park. In this park you
encounter fountains and a lot of greenery. The players all
look uninteresting. Nothing is given much detail in the
game. Probably the best thing graphically are a few of the
backgrounds. The lake is very crystal blue while in the
lakeside course, but that's the only real highpoint of the graphics.
The sound effects consist of a lot of running into things.
They also consist of your player yelling every time you
fall, no matter what the reason. The other players do a
quite of bit of squealing themselves. Encounter a player
being beaten up by another in a tunnel and you might be
slightly amused. Even if it for all the wrong reasons. The
skateboarding sounds different on the asphalt as opposed to
the bicycles wheels turning. That's to be expected I would
think. The music is supposed to be edgy and hardcore, I do
believe, but I felt the music was quite boring in this game.
Some of it is a bit worthy of a second listen, but for the
most part, lackluster music. The music gets as repetitive as
the game play.
Very stiff control. The moves aren't too complicated. For
the most part they came out quite basic, in my opinion. All
the players move very slowly. Jump off the ramp and do a
flip or a turn. That's about it. The best thing, as I
already mentioned, is to jump on the railings and slide down
them. I also already mentioned the ability to attack the
other players with the top buttons. The control is certainly
another lowpoint in the game as, while it is very simple, it
is quite stiff. None of the players move well and they all
move way too slow. The limited turns, spins, and flips are
quite boring as well.
This game comes off as being very repetitve and
uninteresting. There may be three sports, but there is no
variety between them. This really makes it a very
unenjoyable game. Since the game is so boring, the challenge
doesn't much matter, but the challenge is not very high.
It's a bit easy to finish in first place in most of the
races. I don't consider the replay value to be high in this
game at all. If you manage to get through a season at least
once, then you have already played most of the courses two
times anyway. The lack of fun this game provides also hurts
the replay value.
Overall, uninspired graphics and sound. This game also has
very poor control and no variety whatsoever. It would be
nice if the different sports provided were different to play
in some way. However, they all control the same, and they
all use the same courses. This game isn't even worth a rent.
If I knew who lost this game, then I would happily give it
back to him. Hopefully, he enjoyed it much more than I did.
Otherwise, it simply leaves me wishing if I was going to
have the good fortune of finding a few games, then at least
they could have been something worth finding.
Graphics - 6/10
Sound - 6/10
Control - 4/10
Challenge - 6/10
Fun Factor - 4/10
Gameplay - 5/10
Replay Value - 3/10
Overall - 4 out of 10
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