Day 91: Xtreme Sports (Dreamcast)

My ongoing efforts to play one title from my 545 game backlog for every day that the UK is in lockdown return to the Dreamcast with...

Xtreme Sports for the Dreamcast

A little while back (day 49 to be exact), I played a cracking little Game Boy Color effort called Xtreme Sports. It has absolutely no connection to this game whatsoever, but I went into some length, in that post, about how I discovered this game while looking for a Dreamcast title beginning with ‘X’ for an A-to-Z list. 

It turns out that being the only game on the Dreamcast to start with that letter is, sadly, pretty much the only remarkable thing about this game. 

Multi event sports games are almost as old as gaming itself. 

I grew up playing ‘Brian Jacks Superstar Challenge’ and ‘Daley Thompson's Decathlon’ on the Spectrum in the eighties, but there are earlier examples than that.

However, outside of the occasional biathlon, I can’t remember a game that combines events in the way that Xtreme Sports does.

There are six disciplines in total: Snowboarding, Quad-biking, Speed gliding, Mountain biking, Sky Surfing, and Bungee Jumping. 

The USP here is that these are variously combined during the course of a single race. 

You might start with a brief sky surf before landing next to the quad bikes for a race through the hills, switch to a snowboard for a blast through the snow, then be whisked off the mountain on a towed hang-glider to finish the race with the speed gliding event. 

The links between each of these vehicles are handled on foot, with the only control being a very retro hammering of the A button to go faster.

On paper this sounds fantastic, and even looking at videos and screenshots, the game is very enticing. Add a Ninja Tune licensed soundtrack to the mix and you have all the ingredients for a cult classic Dreamcast hidden gem - but if ever there was a game that illustrates the notion of ‘being less than the sum of its parts’ then this is it.

As you would expect from an ‘extreme’ title, tricks are part of the package. But, rather than awarding points, here the favourite old mechanic of tricks = boost = speed = winning is employed. 

This is something I usually rather enjoy, but in Xtreme Sports it has the undesirable effect of making all the events feel the same. 

This problem is exacerbated by lacklustre animation that results in the tricks, regardless of event or vehicle, being a little devoid of weight.

It’s a bit of a shame because there are some great ideas here. The variety of the six events is further expanded by the mix of terrains, for example. Or rather, it should be. 

The fact that you could be racing the quad bike on the snow in one race, on the beach in the next, and on a main road with traffic to wrap things up, sounds incredible. But it isn't. No matter the landscape or environment each machine has the exact same feeling to ride.

This is also true of mountain biking, and there are even snowboarding events on hills with no snow - but only the difference is the colour of the ground and your riders outfit.

This was a game originally due to be released very early in the Dreamcast's life-cycle, and as such it would have been a very impressive technical showcase. 

In terms of presentation it’s really very smart; the draw distance in particular is hugely impressive, even if the textures are a bit hit-and-miss.

That Ninja Tune soundtrack is a joyful thing for an ageing gen-Xer to behold too; with the likes of Cold Cut and DJ Food well represented.

But everything else in the game is so insipid. 

It's quite an achievement to make a game where you bungee jump to the start of a hang glider race boring, but Innerloop Studios somehow managed it - and given the technical prowess on show it’s no surprise to learn that this was a game designed to show off their graphics engine.

Xtreme Sports - A game that somehow snowboards, skydives, mountain bikes, and bungee-jumps it’s way to complete and utter averageness.