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Aggressive Inline Platform - ps2 By: Marc

Extreme sports, it's all been done. From Tony Hawk to Kelly Slater to Shawn Palmer, extreme sports games seem to be just another "everyday thing." But not Aggressive Inline. It seems inline skating hasn't gotten the respect it deserves. But after this game by Z-Axis, a whole new light is shed on the sport. You may be thinking, "Oh great, another Z-Axis Dave Mirra terrible control, garbage game." This is, oh so wrong. Z-Axis uses the popular NeverSoft formula, creating a truly awesome game. From the huge levels, to the perfect controls, to the similar extreme sport humor, this game is everything you could want of the genre.

Gameplay: Aggressive Inline offers 10 pro skaters, along with many fictional characters that each include their own special personality. The pro skaters include Shane Yost, Taig Khris, Franky Morakes, Matt Lindenmuth, Chris Edwards, Sven Boekhorst, Jaren Grob, Matt Salerno, Eito Yasuko, and Sam Fogarty. The game also includes a detailed tutorial, seven humungous levels, a great park editor, freeskate, multiplayer split-screen, and an awesome soundtrack. The entire soundtrack includes "Wrong Way," by Sublime, "Monday Morning" and "Falling For You," by Student Rick, "I'm A Cloud" by Boy Hits Car, "Passing Me By" by Pharcyde, "Sell Out," by Reel Big Fish, "Crawling In The Dark," by Hoobastank, "Idea for A Movie," by The Vandals, "Song # 13," by The Ataris, "The Choice Is Yours," by Black Sheep, "Your Disease," by Saliva, and "Don't Sweat The Technique," by Eric B & Rakim. Just your basic "punk-rock" music for the extreme sports, I guess you could say.

The game itself works in a different way than others. You move across levels by earning points. This means you don't have to necessarily finish the level. There are also small challenges included, which can nab you 1 or 3 points each. The unique thing about these challenges is that each one alters the level permanently. For instance, a statue could raise or something could fall, or so on. The small movie alterations are guaranteed to keep you entertained.
B The controls, oh the controls. They are quite easy to get the hang of, which was a huge plus for me. Triangle = Grind/handplant, R2 = Cess Slide, Square = grab, and Circle = flip/spin. Along with other smaller moves incorporated. One interesting feature is the way your stats are increased. If you perform one certain move a lot, you will gradually see your stats for that move, go up. But, the idea of doing this is to perform all tricks and even out your skater in all areas and become the best around.

One thing definitely worth noting are the monstrous levels. You could just be riding around, checking out the level and accidentally do something to unlock a whole new portion of the level that you never even knew was there. They are just simply that huge. These gigantic levels are also jam-packed. No "waste of space." They strategically use the whole level to their advantage. Graphics: You may have thought Dave Mirra conquered graphics; well Aggressive Inline nearly doubles the polygonal count. So if Dave Mirra shocked you, well then you're in for a heart attack. I just can't stop talking about the levels. They have so much texture and color that it just shocks me with its 60 fps framerate.

Also, as the levels progress, you don't begin to see repetition. Which is a good thing. Each level is unique in its own colorful way. Some even hold, "hidden messages." If you've played the game and explored the levels, you'll know what I'm talking about. Every single level has something to offer.

The roster of characters are also all unique in their own way. Every one of them has a different style to fit their personality. These characters look so much better with Z-Axis' "Dynamic Cloth Technology." This is basically the character animations. They are all very smooth, good-looking and all provide visual "eye candy." For instance, the female skater Chrissy, which is one of the fictional characters, has her skirt flying up every other second, which I'm sure makes you male gamers very happy. Multiplayer: There are ten multiplayer modes. So if you get bored with the single player, which is highly unlikely, this will keep you and your friends busy. Every stage has tons of objectives to complete and many secrets to find. The great thing is that there is no time limit to do it under, just like the career mode. Players and their friends can compete in several multiplayer modes. Such as 21, which is like a physical skate game of blackjack. Also, Animal Rescue, a mode that has players rescuing animals such as monkeys or birds in a specific time limit. Whoever collects the most wins. Simple as that. Endnote: Overall, Aggressive Inline has impressed me many times over. If it's not the animated characters, then it's the huge graphical levels. The only real problem that I have run into with this game is that it is extremely buggy. But hey, what else should ps2 gamers expect? By buggy, I mean that I have fallen through objects, jumped into areas where I "shouldn't be" and I've even fallen through the ground, without doing anything! Even though these bugs produce a major flaw for the game, I still find myself not getting enough of the graphical levels, which always seem to bring me back to the game. Hopefully the bugs will be fixed by the time the XBox and Gamecube version come out, then we would have an extremely great game on our hands.

Presentation There has been a brand new extreme sports game thrown into the mix. And it's definitely worth the buy.	8.5
Graphics These levels are so detailed and full of texture that it will just blow your mind. The character models are also well animated and smooth.	9.0
Gameplay It's a little different from your standard Tony Hawk series, but it's a good kind of different. And, the controls are wonderful.	9.0
Overall If it weren't for the few bugs, this game would be extremely well made. Hell, even with the bugs, it's extremely well made.	9.0