Feet-On

360 degrees (Oh yeah)

Admittedly, I went into this preview biased. One of the guys from GX snatched our preview copy and didn't come away impressed. Besides the realistic posturing of the characters (their stances accurately reflect snowboarders, well enough that they appear to have been researched), the rest of the game seemed a bit too far-fetched, uninteresting, and childish - basically, nothing but eye-candy.

Well, said employee still thinks I'm a nutbar, but TrickStyle really grew on me. I love racing games, and this game brought an interesting new aspect to them, in the form of hoverboard stunts. If you're tired / frustrated at racing, you can head into the arena for some stunt challenge / practice, and conversely, if you've honed your skills as much as you've got patience for, you can head out onto the road to go head-to-head. The racing courses start out fairly trick-independant, but as you progress, skill becomes more and more necessary to get past your opponents, by taking them out or taking shortcuts.

Gleaming the edge

Jumping through hoops

Keep it - I've got a Pit Bull now

You get your choice between four different boards and ten or so racers, depending on your playing style and whose virtual buttocks you want to stare at. If you're a speed demon, the turbo board will probably suit you best, whereas those who want to perform fly tricks will do best to go with the stunt board (my personal favourite).

One place where our pre-alpha was lacking was the racing environments. They purport to be realistic post WWIII cities, but much of the level looks to be placeholder art. We've been talking with the game's producers about this and some other comments we have (balancing out the gameplay by downplaying some tricks, etc), and they've been very responsive so far, so hopefully this is just a transitionary graphical phase.

Great posturing

Nice ass