Introduction

Catch mad air

World War III has come and gone, and oddly enough, everything is now hunky-dory. In fact, the only problem with the new world utopia is that everyone is . . . bored! Lacking anything better to do, and probably having seen Back to the Future 2 one too many times, the youth of the day have taken to gravity surfing through the streets.

In TrickStyle, you get to control one of these young sk8r punks, from guiding them through mastering their phat skillz in the hover-arena to pushing their hoverboards to the limit in the streets of Manhattan, London, or Tokyo. In the arena, you can practice your moves or take challenges to learn new ones, while in the street races you can prove your mettle against the other racers. The more races you complete, the more challenges you can take, the more tricks you can learn, the more fly you will look. Get it?

Consolicious

Trickstyle is being developed concurrently for PC and Dreamcast, so it has a definite console feel to it. You get four buttons - jump, luge, spin, and smash - which you use to control your character. More complex moves involve button combos to pull off; for instance, if you learn to do a 360 while riding your board like a luge, you'd press the luge, then spin buttons to pull it off.

The stunts aren't just for ogling and screenshots (though they do look cool); they often help during the races as well. For instance, a shortcut might involve ducking under a low wall with the luge button, or pulling off a huge 360 jump (spinning makes you go higher) to clear some obstacles. They can also be used offensively, by, say, spinning into a body slam to take out your opponent. In the final version, you'll be able to knock down your friends, but the version we played didn't have multiplayer functionality yet.

Motley crew

My favourite character