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"Overrated; feels rushed and incomplete but still somewhat fun"

Let me first make a note that this review is based on my opinion. After reading reviews for this game, the general consensus is that Aggressive Inline is a great game. After picking up a copy, I am disappointed to say this game is overrated.

Aggressive Inline is an X-Treme Sports game based on in-line skating. Like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series of games, your task is to rack up points, complete objectives and improve your skater's attributes. Unfortunately, AI feels incomplete and lacking in a few departments compared to its rival.

Gameplay
Upon loading your copy of AI, you can choose from Career Mode, Freeskating, Timed Run, a hidden feature, Park Editor and Options.

Career Mode - You choose a skater and use him/her to accomplish ''challenges'' assigned by pedestrians, accomplish ''challenges'' listed in the Challenges list, perform tricks to rack up points, collect juice bottles and add attribute points to your skater's repertoire.

Unlike Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, there is no timer. Instead, you have a ''Juice Meter''. Perform tricks to keep the Juice Meter high. If the Juice Meter runs out, the game ends. In order to continue, you have to sacrifice up to 100,000 points in order to play again.

Freeskate - Choose a skater, choose a scenery and skate away. There are no ''challenges'' to perform. It feels like a dumbed down version of Career Mode.

Timed Run - This mode emulates the way Tony Hawk games are played. Choose a skater, choose a scenery and you have a 2 minute clock. In 2 minutes, you have to get as many points as you can. After 2 minutes, a stats sheet will come up informing you of your total score, the largest score accumulated from doing combos, the high score to beat and the high score for combos.

Park Editor - The Park Editor allows you to make new parks based on 4 existing ''maps''. 3 of the maps are locked. The map that is initially available to edit is similar to the Tutorial Level in Career Mode.

Options - Raise or lower the volume for Sound, Music and Speech voices. You can also choose which controller configuration to use for the game. There's a Media Viewer where you can watch the cutscenes for each level after you beat it. A Cheat Unlocker thing is available for you to input cheat codes as well. The In-Game Options Menu (the one where you Press Start while playing the game) allows you to change your audio playlist.

The levels (I've referred to them as sceneries elsewhere in this review) are large and grand. I'd estimate they are about twice the size of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3's levels. There are interactive objects in the level such as pedestrians who tell you to perform certain tricks, large metal pipes that you can kick all over the place, moving cars and trucks and poles in which your skater can swing around like a monkey.

Please note that the X-Box version of AI comes with 1 bonus level. However, this bonus level is only playable in Freeskate mode. There are NO challenges or objectives to complete in this bonus level. It's just simply ''another level'' that's there for you to play on.

A feature common in X-Treme games that was missing in AI is the ability to create your own skater. Instead, you are forced to play as 12 in-line skaters (I'm assuming most, if not all the 12 skaters do exist in real life). You can also unlock 7 more skaters as you progress further in the game.

You can perform alot of tricks initially. More tricks can be unlocked and performed as you keep on playing the game.

Gameplay Rating: 7/10

Controls
Controls are important to any game, especially X-Treme Sport games. AI allows you to choose between 3 controller configurations. The basic configuration is: Left Analog Stick and Left D-Pad are used to manuver your skater, Right Analog Stick is used to adjust the camera, the Trigger Buttons are used to A/B/X/Y are used for Jumping, Performing a Trick, Grinding and an Action button (talking to a pedestrian or swinging around a pole). The button assignment depends on which configuration you choose.

The controls for your skater are somewhat frustrating. You don't always feel 100% in control of your skater. Hence, you may find out that your skater falls alot (especially on to the side). This might be because I suck at Aggressive Inline, though. :)

Control Rating: 7.5/10

Graphics
The graphics are good but not great. Ya gotta remember, Aggressive Inline is a Playstation 2 port. With that in mind, the X-Box version does not experience framerate slowdowns like the PS2 version. The X-Box version does not have many jaggies either. The lighting is much better on the X-Box version than on the PS2 version. The texturing is decent but it could have been much better. The graphics do not hold a candle to an X-Treme Sport game such as Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding nor other X-Box titles such as Halo, DOA3 or Rallisport Challenge.

Graphics Rating: 8.5/10

Sound
The game lacks sound effects throughout the game. As a matter of a fact, you won't really notice the difference if you mute or unmute the sound. The sound coming from the environment seems ''empty'' as well. Good thing there's the Soundtrack to help your ears.

Sound Rating: 5/10

Music
The game comes with about 13 songs ranging from bands/singers such as POD, Hoobastank, Sublime, Boy Hits Car, The Ataris, Saliva, Pharcyde, Reel Big Fish, Student Rick, The Vandels, and Black Sheep. The Customizable Soundtrack option is pretty neat too. Instead of selecting which soundtracks you want to use in the game, you can just select individual songs from 1 huge list containing all the ripped tracks on your hard drive.

Music Rating: 9/10

Replayability
Like most X-Treme Games, once you beat it, there's really nothing else to do except start over from scratch. Fortunately, X-Treme Sports Games are always fun to occasionally play the game from time to time after you beat it. Of course, there's also split-screen multiplayer (up to 2 players) but I cannot really judge multiplayer since I only own 1 controller. Sorry!

Replayability Rating: 7/10

Conclusion
Overall, Aggressive Inline offers nothing unique over other X-Treme Sports games. The gameplay actually feels rushed and incomplete in many areas. The game lacks pizzazz (lacking in excitement, style and energy). Some modes such as Timed Run offer little purpose. There is no Create-A-Skater mode. Sound is weak and empty. Looking on the bright side, the graphics are sharper and more vibrant on the X-Box version than on the PS2 version. There are also many many many tricks to perform. The songs and customizable soundtrack feature are awesome. Aggressive Inline is a mixed bag that deserves a rental before a purchase.

Final Rating: 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/16/02, Updated 08/16/02