Apparently a two month delay could not afford developers any time to include any features that actually utilized some of the incredibly expensive graphics cards all the kids are buying these days. I?m sure those two months were spent fixing obscure bugs, removing a botched attempt at multiplay and appling those choice voice-overs that the hip boarders recite right after you plow head on into a futuristic looking parked car. It?s a good thing the racer models are so blurry and indistinct, because if I could have made out any of their facial features I would have liked to challenge them to a post race fight for the rude things they hollered at me. Perhaps that is why the character models were are all so poorly rendered, to protect them from the harassment after their careers as urban hipster hover racers. Or perhaps, and I may be fishing here, the developers got them to a ?good enough? level and went on to more important matters, like hitting the paint bags and checking e*trade?.

As I mentioned before, that is unless you skipped right to this juicy paragraph, the word of the day here is mediocrity. Tacky racially stereotyped voice overs, poorly sampled effects and a generic techno soundtrack make the audio in Trickstyle perfunctory at best. In the words of one of the overly arrogant superstars of this game: ?Man, too good!? Yeah, I couldn?t agree more.

After a short training session Trickstyle tosses you into the Velodrome, an arena with three tunnels which transport you to the various races of the game. Five or Six courses in each of the UK, Japan and USA stages make up the bulk of Trickstyles gameplay. Except for the final stage ?Boss Challenges,? all courses are checkpoint style races that take you over a variety of urban terrains. I was mostly pleased with the layout of the tracks, though again, the blurry graphics take away from the scenery and surroundings that go flying by during the game. Hoverboard racing is made up of a combination of constantly steering over boost arrows and knocking over other racers with a drill attack move. Close races against the computer will almost always end in them doing a perfectly aimed drill attack and you smacking head first into a parked car or building. Having fun yet? Well then theres the boss challenges. A variety of mini-games, from simple races to collect-the-glowing-fire-balls, pit you against a blocky boss-type character. The winner gets more tracks to race and a better board, the loser gets a kick in the pants and the option to try again.

Since there is no multiplay features in Trickstyle, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Velocity and Acclaim for making my job a little easier. After trying to run the ?2 Player? mode the game crashed and locked my display at 256 color in 640x480. What a great feature! You guys are the best!

Ok, seriously amigos, if you have the opportunity take a look at Trickstyle on Dreamcast, do so. The difference is like night and day. Maybe Sega paid off someone at Velocity to ?slip? and hurt his ?ACL? and not complete his ?work? on the graphics, but convince his ?supervisor? to release the game anyway, since they can just ?patch? the game ?later.? Sega conspiracies not withstanding, PC certainly gamers got the short end of the shaft on this one. Perhaps the money you were saving for your PC version of Trickstyle could be put into a better investment, like shares of Martha Stewart Enterprises?, or a nice down payment on your very own Dreamcast. But I?m sure that?s just what Sega wants you to think.