Retro Review: 2 Xtreme

File Size: 407MB
Price: $5.99
Developed By: Sony Computer Entertainment of America
Published By: Sony Computer Entertainment of America
Original Release Date: October 31, 1996

Short Review
Not Recommended. "Good" is not a word you'd want to use anywhere near this game. 2 Xtreme is easily one of the worst games that I've ever played in my life--you wouldn't even inflict this upon your mortal enemies. Grinding your testicles through a cheese grater might prove to be more fun. (If you're a girl, growing some for the sole purpose of self-mutilation will sure to be more entertaining than this disaster of a game.) No matter how hard you try, it will be nearly impossible to find 2 Xtreme enjoyable.

What makes 2 Xtreme so bad? Where do I even begin?

First of all, let me ask you a question: do you like to save your game? That's fascinating! The menu system for this game is so convoluted that it will take minutes of trial and error to discover the possibility of starting a new season and saving your data. The process of navigating through the menu is made even more painful through the totally extreme music in the background, and vomit-inducing first-person skate-cam. However, once you successfully decipher the menu, you'll ask yourself: does starting a career actually matter?

Who knows? The game does an incredible job of not telling you what's happening. Why are you restricted to a certain race? Do you have to place in first? Did you place in first? We take such things for granted, but apparently, the team at Sony didn't think this was so important back in 1996.

So, you like graphics? You won't find them here either. This game is an assault to the very idea of vision. Simple things, like hills, or walls, are indistinguishable from the rest of the pixelated environments you'll "skate" through. If atrocious backgrounds weren't satisfying enough, your character models are absolutely horrific. You may, however, get some amusement from the hilarious lack of character animations. The half-assed sprites flail around wildly when you grab some air. It may even bring a small smile to your face, making it easily the most enjoyable aspect of the game.

Oh, and don't even ask about the gameplay. The game controls like a paraplegic version OutRun. Are you on rails? Or, do you actually have momentum? It's hard to tell, with such floaty and imprecise controls. However, it doesn't really matter, because in the end, you're simply going to crash into a barrel. Or a post. Or a moving post. You'll stop dead in your tracks, and because you can't move backwards, you'll have to slide to the side around the object you crashed in to. Only to crash into something else moments afterwards. Hilarious!

At least the game has several different locales for you to choose from. Of course, because the backgrounds are represented in a mass of about three pixels, "Tokyo" doesn't look too different from "Las Vegas." But hey, maybe they're supposed to look the same?
To top it all off, this is the first game I've downloaded from the PlayStation Store that seems to freeze or crash whenever it likes. One time, the game simply froze at the PS logo. It's as if your PSP knows that the game you're playing is utter crap. Make the pain stop!

Honestly, someone at Sony should be fired for greenlighting this game over any other PS1 game. That platform had some real classics, yet we're stuck with this buggy, unplayable garbage. Sony: there's a reason why so many fans feel betrayed. It's because you're doing stupid things like this.

PSP Fanboy Retro Review: 2.0
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