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Aggressive Inline

Acclaim and Z-Axis released Aggressive Inline on the Playstation 2 a couple months ago to a world that is basically controlled by one extreme sports game, Tony Hawk Pro Skater. This now has all changed; Aggressive Inline for the Nintendo GameCube packs a hard punch and is quite possibly the best extreme sports game yet. Its graphics, controls, and gameplay all reign superior to Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Aggressive Inline is full of action packed gargantuan levels – each one with plenty of tasks for players to complete, which should keep players busy for many hours. Add in the fact that there is 12 different skaters and the 8 levels are filled with plenty of rails to grind, half pipes to skate in, and many secrets to unlock – you come out with what has become my favorite extreme game to date. For the purpose of this review we'll keep it short and completely spoiler free. In fact (although we encourage you read the whole review) we'll sum the game up for you in a few words. Aggressive Inline is one of the most fun games on the GameCube, it's the game that will help make the wait for some of the upcoming Nintendo titles and will take over your life for the weeks you have it, as it takes more than 30 solid hours of gameplay to completely clear each level 100% with one character a lone. If you're an extreme sports fanatic, go buy the game as soon as you're done reading this and if you even slightly enjoyed any of the other hot extreme sports titles such as Tony Hawk Pro Skater – rent this game as quickly as possible. You wont regret it.

Gameplay

Aggressive Inline doesn't dwell on a spectacular storyline, but instead the heart of the game lies in its most stellar gameplay. You first choose between 12 of the Pro Inline Skaters. After you have made the difficult choice you will be taken to the tutorial level. In this level you will learn all the basics so once you make it to the first level you know everything a Pro Inline Skater needs to know. Like in, Tony Hawk Pro Skater (sorry for repeating the game so much, but it's the easiest to compare the two, as each game is very similar), you Inline Skate (instead of Skate Board) around levels, competing tasks that wondering people will ask you to do if you skate by them and press the action button, "X". These tasks range from having to pull off certain tricks while transferring into a bowl to getting a certain amount of points in a certain time limit. Seems simple enough, but add in the difficult platform-like level set ups and you'll probably spent hours trying to complete only one single task alone. The game really is that hard. But since in order to improve your Attributes, which are similar to the stats you must buy in Tony Hawk Pro Skater, players must actually practice the moves. For example: If you want to get better at grinding then you must grind often. As you do this that particular skill will increase overtime. The Attributes system is very similar to the experience system which lets you level up in most of today's RPG's. So in theory the further you get into the game the easier certain tasks will become.

Not to take away from the fun factor, but instead to add to the fun factor, Aggressive Inline's controls are as innovative as they are hard to learn. They'll be a simple adjustment to those who have played other extreme sports games, but some of us here at N-Philes had a hard time getting started. It was mostly those who had never played an extreme sports game before, but we assure you, as soon as the controls became natural and comfy – we took the street like we've been doing it for years. Players control their selected Skater by moving the Analog stick, or D-Pad in the direction they want to go. By holding "A" and releasing it your character will jump. Hold "B" as well as push in a certain direction – and even holding "L" or "R" to spin and you'll be able to do tricks. Very similar to the Tony Hawk controls indeed; only the "X" button isn't used to do grabs or flips, but instead it's used to do "vaults'. Vaults are tricks that allow you to grab onto a poll as you pass and allow you to spin your character around and eventually launch them with speed and height. You're also able to use the vault to flip your character over ledges by pressing "X" when approaching a ledge with a low enough height to vault. The only small gripe encountered with the controls in Aggressive Inline is the "cess slide", which must be triggered by pressing the ever so misplaced "Z" button.

Something very special about the tasks you must complete in Aggressive Inline is many of them have scripted outcomes. For example: in the Civic Center level players must grind three of the ropes that hold up a huge Ball sitting on a statue. After grinding the ropes the ball will release and roll through out the city – the outcome of this will provide a new task and area to skate in. This is what many of the tasks will provide you with. It's no lie when we say, Aggressive Inline has to have some of the most Scripted tasks to complete in any extreme sports game to date. This only adds to the great feeling of accomplishment after completing some of the harder tasks in the game – not to mention some tasks are literally close to impossible. Such as, hand-planting a moving Farris wheel and grinding three separate traffic lights – which are each a far amount of space away from each other. If it sounds too hard to you, you're overreacting; Aggressive Inline has its share of tedious and simple tasks to complete as well. Skitching a huge bus by hold "X" when a bus passes proves to simple compared to what else the game packs.

The average gamer could spend as much as 80 hours trying to complete the game 100%. That means completing Career Mode with all 12 skaters and completing each level 100%. Each level takes more than a couple hours to complete to the fullest so the game (even if you only beat once 100% with one character) should take at least 30 hours to complete your first time through. The least amount of time you can spend on the game is if you were to literally rush through the game, completing each level about 30%. Then you'd still spend at least 10 to 20 hours with the game. As you can see Aggressive Inline is a lengthy game – one that will have you coming back week-by-week for more Inline Skating for at least a month. I you multiplayer fanatic – then you're set as well. Aggressive Inline has a two-player split screen multiplayer mode allowing you to play on 4 different levels.

Graphics

Career Mode, Park Editor, Free Skate, Time Attack – all run at 60 Frames Per Second. Of course this is something standard in today's action/sport titles. Thankfully Aggressive Inline runs beautifully with great graphics -- very realistic and very crisp. Considering the fact that in many of the levels such as, the Boardwalk, which is a huge Carnival-like theme park, not once is there any kind of frame-rate drop or camera problems. This comes as a shock considering how much is going on in the level. However multiplayer there has been the occasional frame-rate drop. This happened in the most thriving level (Boardwalk) and didn't come as too much of a shock considering how much is going in the level (as said before).

The graphics are right on par and often times look a lot better than Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3's visuals – which have some of the best looks around. So if you're picky and wont play anything unless it's a sight to see – then you're in luck. The guys at Z-Axis have definitely created a great game with nice graphics for your eyes to see every time you pick up the GameCube controller.\. Aggressive Inline's graphics are some of the best out there, but can't compare to those in the new game Resident Evil, so don't get your hopes up to high. Sorry.

Sound

It's one of the most important aspects of an extreme sports game and Aggressive Inline is full of exactly what you need – every kind of music. From Hard Rock to Punk Rock, Aggressive Inline sports a great soundtrack. Nothing too new to the Music world can be found in the game, but some of the songs such as, P.O.D.'s "Youth of the Nation" and Sublime's, "Wrong Way" provide great tunes to listen to while you're busting out on the huge levels in the game. Add the fact that you can play the game in any surround sound system you have set up and you'll soon find yourself humming some tunes while your around the house and out with friends. Since there are more than 8 tracks to select from – players will have something different to listen to every time they play the game. However, some tunes become repetitive and players might find themselves disenabling certain songs. Don't feel left out.

Even the sound effects such as, grinding are accompanied by great sound effects. For example: when you take off a ramp and do a grab (especially if you don't have any music on) players can hear the actual wheels on the characters blades still spinning. Voice Acting is on the okay side. Not the best, but bearable, to say the least. But the good out ways the bad easily and players shouldn't have too many complaints on the side of sound in Aggressive Inline. The only thing that may cause some problems is no Pro Logic II Surround Sound In the game. It's not as bad as other things the GameCube audience has had to deal with over the last couple months, but it's a sad change considering some of the latest, better games released have supported Pro Logic II. Oh well.

This game gets an N-Philes score of A.

Who would have ever though that the company behind the Dave Mira series would actually create a game that rivals Tony Hawk Pro Skater? We certainly didn't, but it has happened. Visually, gamplay wise, sound wise, Aggressive Inline provides some healthy competition for the guys at Neversoft and Activsion. Skateboarders will find this bad, but the Inline Skating crowd, which has been waiting for a worthy Inline Skating game to glorify their sport for a while, will be happy. It gets better, Aggressive Inline literally has become my favorite extreme sports game to date. At first, I couldn't get over some of the things in the game; controls especially, but it's partly due to the fact that I am used to only playing the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games, but things changed for the best and I've adjusted (to say the least) to the controls (you could say I love them now, if you will).

If you are an avid extreme sports gamer than you should definitely buy Aggressive Inline – even if you slightly enjoyed any of the other extreme sports games, such as Tony Hawk Pro Skater, then you'd enjoy this game. It's fun, addictive, challenging and has a huge amount of replay value. So in conclusion every ‘Cube owner should AT LEAST rent this game. You owe it to yourself, as well as your GameCube. Rent it. Buy it. Whatever... but play it!

Posted in: Reviews