While the freestyle sports craze popularized by Tony Hawk's Pro Skater has hit just about every platform available, aside from a couple of snowboarding games, the PlayStation 2 has remained fairly "extreme" free. Konami has the honor of breaking in the PlayStation 2 as a platform for skateboarding games with its ESPN-licensed game, X Games Skateboarding. Like most modern skateboarding games, X Games borrows enough control and design mechanics from the Tony Hawk series to make it feel similar, but shoddy control, random frame rates, and unfocused level design make Konami's skateboarding game a prime target for a three-day rental.

Like any other skateboarding or BMX game currently on the market, X Games has a goal-based mode that challenges you to complete a set of objectives in each level. Each level has six goals. Two are score based, one is a series of checkpoints, one involves smashing a set of specific objects found throughout the level, one challenges you to do a long combo, and the last involves finding and grabbing a spinning X Games logo hidden somewhere in the level. Each goal earns you a license, and each level is unlocked by earning a certain number of licenses. The levels in this mode range from realistic street-based levels like hilly San Francisco or the suburbs of Los Angeles to more fantasy-based levels like a museum complete with grindable dinosaurs or a boat done up to look like the Titanic. While the levels are decent in theory, in execution, they suffer from boring design. There aren't many good, long trick lines in the levels, and some levels, like the museum, have way too many short sets of steps in them, which can be just enough to totally stop your momentum.

While the game has its goal-based arcade mode, the game's main mode is the X Games mode, which puts you into an authentic X Games skateboarding competition. You can choose between two different levels, vert and street. Each one lets you skate for one minute and then judges your performance. Neither competition is particularly challenging, and anyone who has spent the time it takes to get used to the game's mushy control should be able to get a gold medal in both levels without much effort. Additional modes include a practice mode, a small tutorial, and a few two-player competitions.

From a control standpoint, the game plays roughly the same as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, with a few additions. For example, you must hold up to continue kicking and gaining momentum. Also, there are three different air trick buttons, as opposed to Tony Hawk's two. Square is used for flip tricks, L1 and R1 are used for grabs, and circle is used for air tricks. A few tricks are a little more complicated to do than simply pushing a direction and hitting a button. A McTwist, for example, requires you to spin two full circles on the D-pad and push the circle button. While the game features more trick buttons, that doesn't automatically translate to more tricks, as you use only the four compass directions for tricks, not the diagonals. As a whole, the game feels a little stiff. Turning isn't quite as sharp as you'd want it to be, even when your board is adjusted for better turning. The skaters auto-center themselves on vert tricks, so as long as you let go of the spin and trick buttons with enough time for your skater to auto-correct, you'll land every single trick. The game doesn't really have any clear-cut way to link tricks together for Tony Hawk 2-like endless combos. You land into a manual, but the game doesn't let you ollie out of a manual into another trick. Finally, the game rewards button-mashing on vert tricks, making it easy to put together decent air combos.