Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: HyperSonic Xtreme

Written by Adam Woolcott on February 27, 2003

Full Review: Because if it's spelled УxtremeФ it has to be good!

Since the days of F-Zero, there's been a market for futuristic racers that have weapons, anti-gravity vehicles, and twisty, turny, challenging racetracks. This tradition has been played out excellently in games like Extreme G, Wipeout, and Quantum Redshift (one of the most underappreciated games in the history of the modern world). With that in mind, Majesco brings us HyperSonic Extreme, otherwise known as HSX (with the X in subscript on the game box Ц you know, to be hip and cool & stuff). As a very budget minded game at a retail price of $10, you would expect something similar to the shovelware trash that's on the PSOne these days Ц and you'd be right. Outside of a very cool TrakEditor (yet another play on words to be kewl, d00d), HSX is the highest form of mediocre, with literally nothing here that stands out and draws you into the game. Not only is HSX as generic as they come, it's also plagued with issues that speak out Ц not only is this game $10 bucks to buy, it's also the development budget for Blade Interactive. With games like Wipeout Fusion, Extreme G 3, and Quantum Redshift sitting around for $20 bucks or so (and all being pretty high quality), there's zero reason at all to waste your time with HSX.

HSX's feature set consists of the usual modes of play Ц basic time trials to get a handle on some of the tracks, multiplayer modes, and a Cup mode that consists of a handful of race series. The cup is split into a championship bracket that has a half dozen or so different leagues that you can unlock as you progress, and a 2 league УslalomФ Cup as well. Admittedly there's a good share of races to be had here, giving the game some sort of length, as long as you actually find it interesting enough to play.

There's also a custom cup series that you can create, mixing the tracks from the game, as well as your own, to create a unique racing challenge. In any other game this would be a decent and useful idea.

As mentioned, HSX comes with an excellent track editor. If you can dream it, you can pretty much do it. You can make a track go sky high in a huge tornado looking thing, or create a basic circle track, or anything in-between that you can think of. It's a really cool idea, and with the user championship races you can come up with a circuit to race against friends or computer opponents based on your creations. It's really a shame that this is the only redeeming value of this title, whatsoever.

Where HSX just falls apart is in the way it plays. Not only is it blatantly similar to a Wipeout or F-Zero game, it plays like it's wrapped in turd, with flies circling it for hours at a time. The controls are completely whacked, as they're way too sensitive and hitting the wall on a corner becomes a constant thing even with braking. And since the vehicles go boom after too much damage, this is too much of a flaw to overlook. While I'm sure time with the game would help things along, but if it's a taste you have to acquire, there's no reason to bother acquiring that taste with so many other games around that are better. If HSX was slightly more exciting I'd have given it more of a chance, but it fell flat on its ass when the chance presented itself.

Mix in some mentally challenged AI, boring track design for the original courses (the courses we create are sure to be better than the half-assed ones here), and a sense of speed that's ruined by the frame rate, and you have a 1st generation PS2 game that's overpriced at 10 bucks. HSX is just not fun at all Ц it doesn't pull you in, doesn't want to make you learn the УnuancesФ of the controls, and doesn't create any emotion at all, unless УmehФ is an emotion. It's justЕblah.

As you'd expect, the graphics aren't really that much better. The sense of speed is actually pretty good, but it's flubbed up by a choppy, Perfect Dark quality frame-rate that will only serve to give you a major headache after, oh, 5 minutes of gameplay. It dips around from 30 FPS to about Ц50 or so, which isn't a good thing unless you enjoy that sorta stuff. The visuals themselves are pretty low-res too, with bland textures and not much going on outside of the race itself. Naturally, in a racing game it's hard to see graphics since you're concentrating on the game, but you can tell right away that this isn't one of the PlayStation 2's best pieces of software in this department. More like PlayStation 1 software Ц maybe they just got the platform mixed up.

The sound consists of the same old techno-crap that people think is the best music to race to. It's better off to just hit mute and put something a bit more worthwhile on your CD player or the radio, because the forgettable tunes that play in the background won't draw you into the race at all. The other stuff consists of typical УfuturisticФ racing effects, and some explosions. Nothing at all to write home about.