LogFAQs > #896399517

42. ESPN Extreme Games (LeonhartFour)


This game was retroactively renamed 1Xtreme for the Greatest Hits version because Sony lost the ESPN licensing rights, and it spawned sequels, 2Xtreme and 3Xtreme, which were nowhere near as good. This was one of the earliest PS1 games, and I've still got the huge jewel case it came in that they used to use before they made them smaller. Anyway, I know Board 8 isn't big on "real sports," whether in real life or in video games, but I played a ton of them growing up. I've mostly outgrown them now, but they were a big part of my childhood and teenage years. My best friend and I played this one in particular all the time. I'm not even sure what led us to get this game since neither one of us cares anything about the actual Extreme Games. Then again, we also played a bunch of NHL '94 (another excellent sports game), and we didn't watch hockey either. I tend to like sports games that are more unorthodox, which is part of the reason I'm not into sports games anymore, because stuff like this or NFL Blitz (yet another awesome sports game) is a thing of the past. Extreme Games isn't just a straight racing game. There are absurd obstacles, such as literal cable cars crossing the tracks when you race in San Francisco, along with stuff like barrels, tires, and even animals (the bloody mess in the above pic is from a chicken being run over. No, seriously). You can even punch or kick other racers to knock them down. There are also a number of different colored gates throughout each race, and you get access to a bonus level if you can pass through them all before you get to the finish line. Some of them require you to activate secret passageways. Those gates (combined with how well you finish) are what give you money to upgrade your equipment.

There are four different pieces of equipment you can use to race: Bicycle, skateboard, roller blades, and even a luge board. The luge was definitely the worst and I never used it because you can literally be run over by the bicycle, and their acceleration is extremely slow, to the point that you can actually get stuck trying to go uphill if you're going too slowly. I preferred using the bicycle because it can tank the movable obstacles that knocks over all the other racer types. For a long time, my friend and I were bad at this game to the point that we nearly always finished near the back of the pack. After each race, they have an "analyst" who talks about your performance in canned FMVs, and if you have a bad finish, she'll trash talk the crap out of you, which was great. It motivated us to get better, and when we'd win races, we'd skip her trying to heap praises on us because she didn't deserve that honor after all the junk she said about us! We eventually got to the point where we'd dominate the races and our only competition was each other, which was a lot of fun, too. I wish they still made sports games like this.

Bonus Question: What is your favorite "real" sports game?
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