Total Extreme Sports

The Total Extreme Sports series is a series of extreme sports games released by ACS under the ACS Sports label. The series consists of sports games based on several extreme sports, such as skateboarding, snowboarding and BMX, which were released from 2000 to 2002. The series has been released for several platforms, including the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, XBox, Nintendo Gamecube, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance.
The Total Extreme Sports series was officially licensed by professional skateboarder Danny Way, professional BMX rider Dennis McCoy and professional snowboarder Todd Richards, and features a wide variety of real-life pro extreme sports athletes as playable characters.
==History==
Prior to creating the Total Extreme Sports series, ACS released Snowstorm Riders, an arcade snowboarding game released for the PlayStation-based TGX Modeller arcade system, in 1998. It utilized a unique cabinet with a mounted snowboard controller that the player has to stand on to steer the character, and was noted for its kinetic gameplay.
Before development began, ACS decided to strike a deal with professional skateboarder Danny Way, professional BMX rider Dennis McCoy, and professional snowboarder Todd Richards, in order to promote their newest extreme sports game series, which eventually turned into the Total Extreme Sports series.
The Total Extreme Sports series is one of the few ACS games to be developed by Western-based game development studios instead of ACS' Japan based studios. The Danny Way's Total Skateboarding series was developed by Rage Games, the Dennis McCoy's Total BMX series was developed by Blue Shift, and the Todd Richards' Total Snowboarding series was developed by Radical Entertainment.
The first game in the series to be released is Danny Way’s Total Skateboarding, released in October 21, 2000. Then, Dennis McCoy's Total BMX was released a month later: November 19, 2000, becoming one of the first games of the BMX genre next to Acclaim’s Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX, released months prior. Finally, Todd Richards’s Total Snowboarding was released December 23, 2000, two days before Christmas. Subsequent titles in the series would later follow this release schedule.
The last game in the series to be released was Todd Richards’s Total Snowboarding 3, released in Christmas of 2002. ACS was planning a followup to the series to be released by next year, but lack of interest, as well as the company's contracts with Way, McCoy and Richards expiring, led to ACS putting the Total Extreme Sports series in an indefinite hiatus.
==Gameplay==
The gameplay of the Total Extreme Sports titles bears various similarities to other extreme sports games. Players get to choose their character of choice (or create their own) and traverse through their chosen course, while racking up points by performing tricks and fulfilling various given objectives.
The main objective of the game is to score as many points as the player can by performing successful chains of tricks, which are performed during jumps and are best done when the character goes through a quarter pipe bowl or ramp. The game’s controls are clean-cut and easy to learn, with face buttons being used for ollies/jumping, tricks and grinds, while the shoulder buttons are used for spinning and foot-switching/fakies.
Tricks are performed by entering simple direction + face button commands while the character is airborne. During an airborne state, the player can also spin left or right with a press of the d-pad or shoulder buttons which can be appended to certain tricks for higher score rewards. Players can also grind on rails scattered all around the level for extra points. Failed trick attempts will often result in bailing, which nullifies the player’s score in that combo.
By performing successful chains of tricks in a row, the player can fill up their Extreme meter and activate Total mode. The Total Extreme Sports 2 games add in special Total tricks, special tricks that can only performed during Total mode, which are often high-risk, but reward the player lots of points upon successful landing. In the Skateboarding and BMX games, the Extreme meter goes down gradually as the player stops performing tricks. In the Snowboarding games, the Total meter goes down much slower, due to the more limited nature of snowboarding.
The games feature several real-life skateboarders, BMX riders and snowboarders as playable characters. The game includes unlockable characters mostly consisting of token ACS characters. Series namesakes Danny Way, Dennis McCoy, and Todd Richards have appeared in all iterations of the series.
===Game Modes===
The games feature a plethora of game modes to choose from, with Pro Tour being the game’s main campaign mode, where the player must perform a set of various challenges per level, which awards them cash or medals which they can then use in order to unlock extra boards/bikes, levels or playable characters.
The Pro Tour mode is mostly objective-based, in which the player are given two minutes to accomplish the objectives scattered within the course. Objectives range from earning a certain amount of score to collecting bonus icons and letters to spell out words like “SKATE”, “GRIND” or “TOTAL”, to smashing objects, to performing a specific trick line.
Once in a while, the player could join contests, where there are no other objectives besides beating the other skaters/riders by setting high scores. Contests in the Skateboarding and BMX games are more straightforward trick attack competitions, and are typically contested via the judges' average performance scores, while in the Snowboarding games, contests are split into three unique and separate events: Slopestyle, Superpipe and Big Air.
Other recurring modes include Session mode, where the player is given two minutes to perform as many trick as they can in order to beat high scores, Freeplay, where the time limit is disabled and the player is given free rein to practice through the course (a similarly named mode is available in the Snowboarding games, but acts more like Session mode), and various Multiplayer games, such as Grafitti, H.O.R.S.E. and Trick Attack. Tutorials are also available for those who are getting started with the game.
===Create Modes===
Total Extreme Sports 2 adds the option to create custom characters. Players are able to create custom characters of both genders, and change their clothing, stats and trick list. The player is able to store a maximum of ten skaters/riders per save. These custom characters can then be used on all modes.
Total Extreme Sports 3 expands on the creation suite by introducing a create-a-park (or create-a-course in the Snowboarding games) feature that allows the player to create their own custom parks and courses, which they can then use in various game modes.
==Soundtracks==
The Total Extreme Sports series features several licensed songs from different artists and bands. The tracks featured are predominantly composed of punk rock and pop-punk tracks, but also feature other genres such as hip-hop, nu metal and electronica.
Main article: Total Extreme Sports/Soundtracks
==Titles==
===Danny Way’s Total Skateboarding===
*Danny Way’s Total Skateboarding (2000; PlayStation, Dreamcast, Game Boy Color)
*Danny Way’s Total Skateboarding 2 (2001; PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance)
*Danny Way’s Total Skateboarding 3 (2002; PlayStation 2, XBox, Gamecube, Game Boy Advance)
===Dennis McCoy’s Total BMX===
*Dennis McCoy’s Total BMX (2000; PlayStation, Dreamcast, Game Boy Color)
*Dennis McCoy’s Total BMX 2 (2001; PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance)
*Dennis McCoy's Total BMX 3 (2002; PlayStation 2, XBox, Gamecube, Game Boy Advance)
===Todd Richards’ Total Snowboarding===
*Todd Richards’ Total Snowboarding (2000; PlayStation, Dreamcast, Game Boy Color)
*Todd Richards’ Total Snowboarding 2 (2001; PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance)
*Todd Richards’ Total Snowboarding 3 (2002; PlayStation 2, XBox, Gamecube, Game Boy Advance)
==Trivia==
*Whenever the player falls out of bounds, into water or gets hit by a train in certain areas, the player respawns back it came from, while a random zinger appears on-screen chronicling what happened. Some more common and noticeable zingers include:
**(after falling on water) “Taking a bath?”
**(after falling on sand) “Sand me an angel!”
**(after falling off a cliff) “It's a long way down.”
**(after getting run over by a train) “You need training, man.”
*Danny Way's Total Skateboarding 2 features Fred Durst of the rap metal band Limp Bizkit as a secret playable character. He can be unlocked by completing the game with all of the skaters. The band's song "My Generation", from their then recently-released third album Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water, was also featured as an in-game track.
*Hacking Dennis McCoy’s Total BMX 2 would reveal an unused area known as “Hangar 55”, a level taking place inside an Air Force hangar. Hangar 55 was eventually re-included in Dennis McCoy’s Total BMX 3 as an unlockable. It is often presumed that Hangar 55's removal from the game was due to the then-recent 9/11 terrorist attacks.
*The song "Bleed American" by Jimmy Eat World, which was featured in Todd Richards’s Total Snowboarding 3, is listed under the title "Salt Sweat Sugar" in-game. This is in accordance to the renaming of the song by the band itself following the events of 9/11.
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