Graphics and Sound

Take eye candy from strangers

Trickstyle's graphics probably aren't a technological breakthrough, in terms of those buzzwords you're used to hearing. It doesn't encorporate the newest 3d-alpha-z-buffer-mapped-triple-blended-spicy-decaf-rendering technology, but what it does do is look really spiffy. It isn't totally Flinstones material; you'll need a 3d card supporting either D3D or Glide to play it. Once you've got that, though, it's smooth street surfing.

Abandoning realism in favor of neat effects was a good call on this one, since the whole premise of the game pretty much boxes up realism and tries to teach it to fly, Raoul-style. Some examples are: the boards leave different-colored glowy trails behind them; spinning into an attack luge (called a 'boogiedrill,' for some reason) creates a blue aura around you, and all of your boarder stances and outfits are drawn to look as fly as possible.

Loop-the-loop

Breakin' glass

Sounds like funkstyle

Trickstyle does sound right - almost. The sound effects it has are minimalist, and are just what you'd expect. The soundtrack is actually great; turn on CD audio, and be treated to some great grooves to play by, assuming you like electronica. The only caveat as far as sound: turn OFF those hideous voice effects. Every time the racers get near each other, it seems, they'll spout out some inane phrase; worse yet, they have a very limited vocabulary, so you'll be hearing the same thing over and over again. After a bit of tweaking in the sound menu, though, you'll be set.

Who knows

Kickflip