A few weeks ago we covered EA's SSX for PS2, now it looks like Konami will be releasing their own version of a snowboarding game, and guess what its got ESPN written all over it. Taking cue from the Cool Boarders series, X Games will use real boarders instead of fictional ones. I haven't heard anything about 989 releasing a new Cool Boarder title for PS2 so I'm guessing that the competition is a little bit too much for them. SSX is definitely shaping up to be one hell of a snowboarder, and X Games is neck and neck to it. This will mark Konami's first extreme sports game for PS2 and what a way it is to mark it. Read on for more details and check out the yummy screens we have for you.

      Alright all rumors aside, I have triple checked my research on whether or not the PS2 has anti-aliasing and it indeed has. Let me make something clear, the PS2 games that we currently have in Japan took only 8-9 months to develop and the PS2 is incredibly hard to develop for. So the developers were running on a tight schedule and they didn't have time to program for anti-aliasing, why do you think that Namco gave Tekken Tag a delay? Judging by these very early first screens ESPN X Games looks like it is one first titles to actually push the PS2's limits past the 50% mark. Keep in mind that the game is only running on the DEV-KIT and not the PS2 so there may be a little insignificant change in the visuals. The snow and environments look wonderful, Konami is already putting much effort in order to start things off right with the PS2 and it shows. Honestly I don't think current PCs can do what X Games is doing on the PS2. The four screens we have are pretty much it as press time goes, but as soon as we get more we will show them to you.

      Including four different X-Games competitions such as Big Air, Boarder Cross (a'la SSX?), Slopestyle and Halfpipe, ESPN may give SSX a run for its money. Not only do you get X-Games boarders but you are also given olympic gold medallists and legends that are long gone from the sport. The game will be released in Japan so the amount of authenticity is questionable or unknown, but I predict that the only noticeable differences will be language. That's about all that can be said about ESPN X Games Snowboarding for now, the game is expected to arrive here in the states around November and Konami is very confident that they will make that deadline.

03/29/00  SolidSnake

Playstation 2

Scheduled release date:
November 2000

Publisher:
Konami

Developer:
Konami

Genre:
Sports

Number of Players:
1-?