Hands-onAggressive Inline

During a recent visit to developer Z-Axis, we had the opportunity to check out an early build of Aggressive Inline. It is the first extreme sports game to focus on inline skating and is coming together very well. For more than a year now, a team of 30--which is using the next-generation graphics engine in Dave Mirra 2 and marrying it to a new physics and gameplay system--has been working on Aggressive Inline. The end result looks promising.

The game will feature nine top pro skaters, including Taig Khris, Frankie Morales, Shane Yost, Eito Yasataoko, Jaren Grob, Matt Lindemuth, Matt Salerno, Sam Fogerty, and Chris Edwards, who is considered by many to be the founding father of the sport. You'll also find original female skater characters created specifically for the game. Inline skating fans should be pleased to hear that Edwards contributed more than just his name to Aggressive Inline. In addition to providing input for the game's development, Edwards was motion-captured, along with Yost, to provide Z-Axis with realistic animation for the skater's movements.

Graphically, the game is looking very good. You'll find enormous levels that are significantly larger and far more detailed than those in Dave Mirra 2. The game will also offer a wide variety of special effects. A dynamic lighting engine is being used in tandem with the particle effects emitted when you perform a grind, casting light on your surroundings as you move through an area. A new bit of eye candy for PS2 owners is a vertex shader, which makes the grass in the game similar to the grass in DM2 on the Xbox. In terms of character models, each skater is cleanly detailed and modeled, featuring moving clothing and hair. We saw an early build of the game, but it managed to maintain a constant frame rate of 60fps.

But while the game's graphics are coming together, Aggressive Inline's most impressive element is its gameplay. Featuring an all-new arcade-style trick system, the game has a solid feel. The flexible control mixes elements from Dave Mirra and Tony Hawk with some new innovations. The game features a move called a "cess slide," which lets you link to four different manuals and create huge combos. The context-sensitive "action button" lets you perform vaults, horizontal and vertical spins, skitches, and bails, as well as communicate with NPCs in the game. The bail move should be greatly appreciated thanks to its functionality: if it seems that you're about to crash-land, a carefully timed press of the action button will enable you to land on your feet and avoid disaster. The game will also feature a dynamic attribute system that will let your character evolve based on how you play the game.

We were able to check out a few levels in the game--the boardwalk, the movie lot, the museum, and the civic center. While the levels weren't quite finished, we were able to get a sense of how the scripted events would work in the game--you'll talk to an NPC, who will present you with a challenge that will result in a scripted event when you complete it. The best way to think of how the events affect the levels is to expect every level in Aggressive Inline to have at least one or more event along the lines of the earthquake in Tony Hawk 3. Control in the game was solid--the ability to accelerate with the X button or D-pad worked especially well. The grind system is coming together, although it still needed a bit of balancing when performing certain tricks. Fortunately, Z-Axis stated that it's currently working on tuning the game mechanics.

So far, Aggressive Inline looks to be one of the most promising titles we've seen from Z-Axis and Acclaim yet. Stay on the lookout for more on the game in coming weeks. Aggressive Inline is currently slated for a simultaneous release on the PS2, GameCube, and Xbox later this year.