2Xtreme is a racing/combat game from 1996 featuring a variety of extreme sports like rollerblading, skateboarding, biking and snowboarding. Don’t be fooled though, all four of these control and play exactly the same.
The game is basically a Road Rash style game where you race through gates, dodge obstacles and punch other players. It’s not rendered in full 3D, so the races don’t loop around like an actual course. It’s more of just racing forward from one point to another. The mix of 2D and 3D graphics makes it difficult to judge the location of objects, so you’ll frequently round a corner right into a barrel that looked like it was further to the left or right.
I just played the 2Xtreme the other day and… is it bad? Probably. But it’s not terrible. The gameplay is a bit frustrating, dull and repetitive, but its probably not the worst game of its kind.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, which came out almost two and a half years later, would completely reshape the extreme sports scene for video games. Making games like 2Xtreme look incredibly dated.
Originally a part of the “My Collection” series of articles.
