First impressionsJonny Moseley Mad Trix

3DO gave us a look at its first extreme sports title, Jonny Moseley Mad Trix, a trick-based skiing game. One part Tony Hawk and one part SSX, the game is based on freestyle skiing, a sport growing in popularity, which has skiers performing near impossible stunts while barreling down hills. After spending time with an early build of the game, we came away impressed with the direction the game is headed.

3DO is working to ensure that Mad Trix is as true to the feel of the sport as possible and has enlisted the help of Olympic gold medallist and freestyle skier Jonny Moseley, who has worked closely with the developers on the game. In addition to giving input, Moseley and X Games freestyle skiing gold medallist Tanner Hall had their moves motion-captured for the game. Moseley and Hall turn up as selectable characters in the game as well. The rest of the roster of playable characters is a mix of real faces and original characters.

The game's tracks--set in Las Vegas, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Machu Picchu, Rome, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Nepal, Tahoe, Alaska, and Antarctica--follow the same logic by blending real locations with original layouts. The layouts of the various tracks are structured in such a way as to make each locale offer choice trick opportunities. For example, in the game's San Francisco track, the city is flooded with so much snow that the freestyle skiers can grind off the Golden Gate Bridge--something that wouldn't happen in real life. Other signs of creative license include earthquakes leveling buildings as you ski by in San Francisco and lava flows in Machu Picchu.

The build we played briefly was still early but already ripped along at a near constant 60 frames per second. The various tracks were huge and detailed and featured very clean textures. Skier animations were still being worked on, but we were already able to get a feel for them. It was possible to ski backward down a hill and combo that into different tricks. Mad Trix is set to offer you more than 150 individual tricks to learn, which can be comboed together in a Tony Hawk-like fashion.

The basic game will have you skiing through each level accomplishing a set group of tricks. By successfully completing the tricks, you will win medals, gain sponsors, and win points, which can be used to unlock more tricks. Sponsors are important for funding your skiing endeavors, because with enough cash, you will be able to earn the honor of being dropped out of a helicopter at the top of a mountain. By using the replay feature and different camera modes, you will also be able to make ski movies of your runs and save them to a memory card.

While what we saw was early, the game is definitely showing promise. Look for more on the game as it becomes available. Jonny Moseley Mad Trix is set to ship this fall for the PlayStation 2 and the Game Boy Advance.