XGIII: Extreme G Racing

The Good
I play PS2 games on my pc via an emulator so the first, and obviously the major, thing to like about this game is that it plays flawlessly in such an environment. Other that it failed impress.

The Bad
I was underwhelmed by the game's design. Everything is locked from the start. Want to do a time trial? Great, the game will let you get through a load of selection screens before hitting you with a course selection screen where nothing is available. Don't want to compete in the low level cup? Tough, there may be four tournaments but the only way to play in the big league is to play through the lower levels first.

I made the mistake of picking a team with an underpowered machine to start with. No problem thought I, I'll use the triangle to step back through the menus and select another. Nope, not possible. The game went back as far as the team selection I'd made and stuck there. To select a new team I had to reload the entire game.

I was not overly thrilled with the gameplay either. The bike sits squarely in the middle of the screen. It doesn't tilt, it doesn't swerve around other players, instead the world revolves around it.

The first level is set at dusk and, while it looks good in the screenshots, I found it a pig to play if I had any kind of reflection on my screen. In practice it was just too murky to see the track ahead and position my bike accordingly.

The Bottom Line
When I started this game I thought that perhaps I was getting a game to rival Jet Ion GP my current favourite PS2 game. This is not the case. The music is reasonable but entirely forgettable and the game itself just does not have that 'magic'.