Aggressive Inline (video game)
| Aggressive Inline | |
|---|---|
 North American PlayStation 2 cover art | |
| Developer(s) |
Z-Axis Games Full Fat (GBA) |
| Publisher(s) | AKA Acclaim |
| Platform(s) |
PlayStation 2 GameCube Game Boy Advance Xbox |
| Release |
PlayStation 2[1] Xbox[2] GameCube[3] Game Boy Advance[4] |
| Genre(s) | Sports |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Aggressive Inline is a 2002 aggressive inline skating video game developed by Z-Axis Ltd. and Full Fat and published by Acclaim Entertainment under their AKA Acclaim brand. The game features professional inline skaters, including Chris Edwards, Eito Yasutoko, Franky Morales, Jaren Grob and Taïg Khris.
Gameplay
The gameplay focuses on completing goals given by talking to characters within each level. While some goals involve gaining a certain amount of points in a specific time, many of the goals involve doing tricks on and off of pieces of the environment (for example: one level asks the player to grind three traffic lights, each one placed at a larger distance and facing a different direction). Another innovative feature focused on a player leveling system where the player would perform better in different areas of skating skill by practicing them repeatedly. For instance, if the player does many air tricks throughout the course of the game, each successful trick would create points in the player's air trick statistics. When the points reach a certain amount, the player's air tricks will move up a level, making it easier to perform air tricks faster and more efficiently. The same actions apply to grinding, speed, wall riding, skating backward, etc.
Reception
The game received praise for its wide and interactive environments, comfortable control scheme, and innovative gameplay. At the time, it was considered to be a breakthrough competitor to the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series, even being the first to include some elements that would later become standard in the Tony Hawk games, most notably not confining players to rigidly timed play sessions. In addition, the ability to transition from one trick to another seamlessly without having to do any actions in between made for a more streamlined combo system than the Tony Hawk series and most other action sports titles at the time, where players had to perform transition maneuvers such as ollies or flips to link one trick to another - although some fans of the genre considered this aspect of Aggressive Inline's trick system "too easy." The game generally received good reviews for its style of play, with the average review ratio for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Gamecube being 85%, with the Game Boy Advance version receiving worse scores than the versions on consoles (mainly because the GBA version had more of a "do these goals, hit this score, reach the finish" system than console).