Trick Style

Released on September 9th, 1999 by developers Criterion Games and publisher Acclaim Entertainment, Trick Style was a launch title for the Dreamcast, set in the near future where hoverboarding has become a popular extreme sport. There are 3 main stages to compete in: London, Tokyo and Manhattan Island and boarders must race through each, pulling off gravity defying stunts as they go, in order to reach the finish line as number one. The blurb on the back of the games case also promises (erroneously in my eyes) a fourth stage called the Velodrome, but this merely consists of a few sand dunes in a small arena and is more a hub/gateway to the other levels than any real stage in itself.
There are 9 boarders on offer each with their own style, unique moves and clothing/hoverboard preferences, blah, blah, blah but each is really only a token character from the country where the hail from. Extended yawn sounds.
Readers will no doubt have picked up on my disinterest on Trick Style by now and it must be said, this title had me bored to the froth of my beer and wishing each race would end sharpish, preferably in fleshy pieces all over Big Ben.
Visually characters are blocky and buildings like Tower Bridge and the aforementioned Big Ben look very bland and paper mache-like. There is nothing to *thumbs up* this game at all and one comes away with the feeling that it was only made as an attempt to cash in on the far superior Airblade on Playstation 2. I added Trick Style to my Dreamcast collection a few days ago having missed it the first time around, and was actually looking forward to booting it up. But after playing a few hours all I wanted was to boot it into pretty shards.
Controls are simple enough in theory but are ruined by being unresponsive, resulting in all too frequent smashes into walls. The grind rails admittedly look fun but getting on them is like nailing blancmange to a ceiling. Its far from the worst game Ive ever played but being only slightly better than tripe like Hugo and Fighting Force 2 is hardly a compliment.
All in all its a frustrating affair and a total let down from what could have been with better design and tracks a very tidy game. Alas it was not to be. Trick Style can be picked up for around £1 or £2 and quite frankly unless you're aiming to collect every Dreamcast title like I am, then those prices are still steep. Its a total bail man!