The sound department has me caught in a cross fire. The soundtrack is chock-full of outstanding techno, but the sound effects are trite and unappealing. In the race mode, the game gives you an audio signal every time you pass or are passed by another racer. This bogs the techno down with unnecessary and repetitive character taunts. It's enough to make you mute the race mode sound effects altogether.
It's the little things that make TrickStyle suffer. It's way too easy to perform the tricks, and there are only two or three tricks worth doing in the stunt challenges. Also, no matter what you do, you'll always answer to the trainer at the end of your session - if you beat a race, he'll be there to congratulate you, and if you lose a race, he'll be there to encourage you. This ends up being a little tedious because he says the same lame thing almost every time. I've had better pep talks from my Peewee football coach. TrickStyle's biggest problem is that it's too easy to beat. I completed all the challenges, placed first in all the races, and even played around in practice mode in less than seven hours. Once you've run through the game, unlocked all the tricks and boards, there's really no reason for you to play it again. The stunt mode was obviously replaced with a practice mode, where you run around the Velodrome without any sort of time limit, performing stunts and racking up a score. This is fun for less than a minute. In addition to that, there's simply nothing of value for you to unlock. Even if there were alternate racers, it's not like you'd play again, since the only racers of value are those who can knock about the other players. Once you beat the only difficult track in the game, the Velodrome trainer says, "I never thought you'd beat me! Here, I have a surprise for you." And that surprise? The credits.
Want to take TrickStyle with you? Just download the minigame to your VMU. But don't expect to be doing any gnarly stunts while on the bus, because TrickStyle Jr. is in fact Snake (also known as Worm) - the game you learned to program on your Apple II back when you were a kid. Don't ask me how leading a line to a pixel without hitting walls or your ever-growing tail can be considered even remotely like TrickStyle - unless you're talking about how unengaging they both are.
TrickStyle has a very Wipeout XL feel - a futuristic, hover-race environment with nifty techno-script symbols and a soundtrack stacked full of electronica. However, TrickStyle fails to deliver the same sense of speed Wipeout was so famous for, and it ends up leaving you playing just another boarding game. It's easy to tell where Criterion cut corners - in the player animations, sound effects, and the backward tracks. Without any sort of timed stunt course, the tricks you learn from the challenges aren't compelling enough to make you want to fly about the Velodrome any more than you have to. This game falls directly into the perfect-for-a-rental category, and it ultimately proves that you need more than great graphics to make a great game.
TrickStyle:
