Extreme-G 3 Review
The sum of Extreme-G 3's parts is a smart and solid racing game that provides an amazing feeling of true speed.
But Extreme G-3 saves its most impressive visual effect until near the end of the game. Once you garner a higher-capacity engine, hitting the turbo boost button sends you to speeds so fast that the screen ripples and distorts, and the sounds all around you drag and muffle like they're coming at you through an underwater tunnel, with everything rushing by at intense speeds after a singularly dramatic, momentary pause--your payoff for making it so far, extreme G's. You can maintain this speed for only a handful of seconds, but you'll want to quickly start hunting for shield energy once you come down so that you can do it again. To the game's credit, it provides an excellent feeling of speed from the start, and once you get to the final few courses, it spoils you with the extreme-G effect. But it's give and take. The feeling of speed is intense, but it's provided at the expense of some of the other graphical niceties. The environments lack some of the visual flair that we've come to expect from the series and that we might anticipate on the PlayStation 2.
Extreme G-3's sound effects, though, are excellent. The jet engine whine of the bike's motor builds as you get closer to an opponent, or as one speeds up on you, gaining or losing pitch as you race up or down hills. It's such a gradual and effective sensory feature that you can close your eyes and still know what's going on in the game, save for being aware of the bends in the road. The same words of praise can't be said about the game's soundtrack, however. It's composed of a number of UK techno tracks that are certainly serviceable but somewhat basic and repetitive ("Give me a fat beat! Give me a fat beat!").
The game's two-player mode is viewed from a vertical split-screen, which lends great visibility to the course ahead since the tracks are thin and vertically ascending with loops and hills. It's fantastic looking and keeps a high and consistent frame rate with barely any noticeable chugs. In a way, the two-player mode looks even better than the single-player because it cuts the backgrounds out of the picture and focuses only on the action.
The sum of Extreme-G 3's parts is a smart and solid racing game that provides an amazing feeling of true speed. It's only salient drawbacks are that there are some holes in its AI that you can exploit to race through the leagues, that there aren't enough tracks, and that more eye candy isn't possible with frame rates this high. It's a racer that should appeal to those who get little out of Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec and to those who've grown tired of waiting for Sony to finally get around to finishing Wipeout Fusion.
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- GameSpot Scoregreat
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Critic Scores
- PSX Extreme 9 / 10
- IGN 8.4 / 10
- Game Rankings 84 / 100
- GameZone 9 / 10
- Gaming Age B+
- TotalPlaystation 8 / 10
- Club Skill 8.2 / 10
- Electric Playground 8 / 10
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