Aggressive Inline Is An Alright Game. Nuff Said.
I love extreme sports game. I have played and beaten a lot of extreme sports games: Cool Boarders, Tony Hawk, Shaun Palmer, Matt Hoffman, Dave Mirra... yes, they were cool, but all of them were pretty similar(with the exception of Dave Mirra). Now, when I heard about a game called Aggressive Inline coming out, I didn't feel interested about it. Yes, it was about inline skating(something new) but I felt like it was going to be another Tony Hawk wannabe. However, I ended up buying the game(numerous preview across the 'net conviced me). At first, it seems like a Dave Mirra wannabe.... however, after I started playing, I quickly noticed it was much different, much more dynamic and I realized something: I couldn't put the controller down.
Gameplay : I will catch you on that in a moment. CE:AI is like all X-games: you from here to there, pull out some tricks, get a lot of points, and complete objectives. Chris does add a few things tho'. For example, there is no time limit. Instead, there is this ''juice'' bar which fills up as you perform tricks and grab ''juice cans''. However, if you bail, you'll lose juice. If juice is empty, the game ends. Now, you may think ''hey, having unlimited time, scoring is _easy_ This game makes no sense!). Ok, let me tell you something. Score challenges in this game are insane(rack up 2 million points) so you've got anything to worry.
Now, there is something in Chris' game and in every X-game that you won't really like: extreme doses of frustration. This game, like a lot of games, features some objectives that will frustrate the hell out of you. Your character doesn't seem to respond, you can't reach that ledge, it's _too_ hard, your character cannot do it... at first,you'll be like ''hey, two more tries and I'm done''. However, after the 20th try, you'll know what frustration is. I'm not saying this game should be a walk in the park. No. If course it should be challenging.
But challenging doesn't mean frustrating. Controls in CE:AI are very good, indeed, like in most extreme sports game. You move around with the sticks, use this and that button to jump and to pull out tricks, etc, etc, etc. Pulling out tricks is nothing complicated. You press this and that button, do a couple of circles in the stick and you've got a trick. Nothing complicated. However, controls sometimes mess up because of the camera and sometimes they do not respond at all... this will get you mad, I assure you that.
Graphics : The game's graphics are very good and very well crafted. Although the skaters you control look a little too fake, and pedestrians(and cars) look ugly, there is some smooth animation in Aggressive Inline. The levels are huge... they seem to be pretty small at first, but once you discover the secret areas, you'll soon learn how huge they are. And they're awesome, graphically talking. There are lots of details in each level and there is no pop-up. Exploring the game's level is a fun thing to do, really.
Sound : Your basic extreme sports game soundtrack: a few groups that everybody knows and *may* like, a few punk-like groups that anybody knows but seem to be cool and another bunch of groups that anybody knows and suck. Well, It sounds cool, does it? It is not. Musics are sometimes a tad short, so you'll be hearing the same song a lot of times. Voice acting(there is some) is horrible(let me get that straight: it's horrible). In conclusion, Aggressive sound is not good.
Very long indeed. There are a ton of objectives in the levels, some nifty items to collect, secret objectives which you must find, secret rooms... it all add ups for a very long game. However, there are not a lot of stages....
There is no replay in this game. Why? Because you can come back to all of the game's stages without having to start a new file. See?...