Keep an Eye Peeled

Dude! Hella!

As silly as it seemed as first, we're going to keep our eye on TrickStyle. It's got the kind of eye-catching graphics and addictive gameplay that could make it a great title when it's done. Fans of this weekend's X-Games in San Francisco will likely be interested in the title as well, if for no other reason than to get in some virtual boarding. Pure racing fans beware, though; it's a far cry from a racing sim, even though that's the genre it fits into most easily.

Snowboarders / wakeboarders / freeborders / skateboarders get excited! Criterion has done an excellent job of making the physics realistic in TrickStyle. For instance, slam down hard onto a flat surface and you're likely to bail, but slam down hard onto an incline, and you just build up speed, while maintaining control. As an avid snowboarder, this game felt and looked right to me, which is more than I can say for any other "snowboarding sim" I've ever played.

Branded a loser

Lame cities so far

T-t-t-t-t-hat's all, folks!

Well, we only got to play the pre-alpha, so there were obviously many immersive elements not yet implemented: music, multiplayer, etc. Count on plenty of upgrades, tweaks, and bugfixes before the game is released in Q3 99, and count on FiringSquad to give you the down-low on all these advances. In the meantime, for a racing fix of a different type, check out our review of Need For Speed: High Stakes, or check out some more glorious screenshots.

Slalom time

Dyslexic finish