TrickStyle, a futuristic racing video game (2024)

I got a sports video game for the Dreamcast for you: TrickStyle! It is also one of the Dreamcast launch titles (released September 9, 1999 in North America and July 31, 2000 in Europe) that did not have a release in Japan and it was also released on Microsoft Windows PCs. The game was published by the now-defunct Acclaim Entertainment and developed by the still-active Criterion Games which is now a subsidiary of EA (Electronic Arts), though EA skipped the Dreamcast. The game was re-released by its current owners, Throwback Entertainment, on GOG.com on December 29, 2015, and on Steam on February 21, 2017.

Fiona Sperry is the game’s producer, and Richard Beddow did the sound effects and music for the game, though TrickStyle’s soundtrack was composed by hip-hop producer Kurtis Mantronik.

TrickStyle initially allows the player to choose a racer and places them in the Velodrome. From there, they can enter different rooms to decide their next challenge. The player can either challenge the Velodrome trainer to unlock new tricks, or race to unlock new areas and hoverboards. The game’s characters are as follows:

• Angel (real name: Sarah Brandt) is an 18-year-old racer from the UK and is also a straight-A student. She was orphaned at an early age when her mother died of mysterious circ*mstances, according to her bio in the NA manual of the game. She bears some resemblance to Emma Bunton (Baby Spice) of the Spice Girls.

• Brad Silver is a 25-year-old racer from Australia. He is also a true extreme sports star who has done everything from base jumping to parascending and has won many awards.

• The King (real name: Carlos Xavier Jorge Domingo Rodriguez) is a 42-year-old stunter from Havana, Cuba (where Cuban-American singer-songwriter Gloria Estefan had originated). He is also a celebrity, impersonator, and entertainer.

• Kolonel Uri Selenikov is a 38-year-old “bully racer” from (country of origin withheld)1. He is also a military history professor who enters the tournament as he would take as his prize the mayorship of Neo-Moscow.

• Max (real name: Magnus Bjornson) is a 42-year-old “bully racer” (and mercenary) from Iceland (Germany in the Dreamcast version). He has the most strength like the other “bully” characters. He is also revealed to be the estranged father of Angel, though he is unaware of his estranged daughter’s existence.

• Precious Mia Deneuve (Mistress Mia Deneuve in the PC version) is a 24-year-old stunter from France. Born into a wealthy French family, she studied dance in Paris and then went on to win the European Lo-Grav Tournament.

• Precious Rose (real name: Nettie) is a 20-year-old “bully racer” (and powerlifter) from Kingston, Jamaica (where the sprinters Yohan Blake and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce had originated). Rose decided at an early age to become the biggest, toughest woman ever seen. She worked night and day in a warehouse, lifting crates. She also bears some resemblance to Grace Jones.

• Shin Takamatsu is a mysterious Japanese racer as no one has seen him outside his high-tech, Power Rangers-inspired “Jugaku” suit in 40 years. He is rumored to be 117 years old.

• Zachary Tiberius “Zak” Burks is a 16-year-old stunter and “surfer dude” from New York City (possibly Queens, where the Chinese-American actress Lucy Liu had originated). He was orphaned at a young age and had no real family.

• Nigel Mon (real name: Neville “Junior” Stiles) is an 18-year-old racer (and TrickStyle Tour Guide) from Kingston, Jamaica. Nigel Mon lived in the ghetto neighborhoods of downtown Kingston, surrounded by the luxurious resorts that dotted the oceanfront for ages, until he broke away from his roots at the tender age of 15 as he moved to the island of Bimini to dedicate his life to winning a gravity surfing championship. (Note: Nigel Mon was specifically made for the PC version and not the Dreamcast version, and has not been featured in any other game since.)

For the challenges, the player must pass through a series of gates before time expires. For racing, the player progresses through tracks on 3 different continents, the US, the UK, and Japan. Once all five races on each continent are complete, the player unlocks a “boss race” which unlocks a new hoverboard. There are a total of 18 tracks in the game, with 4 of them being backward versions of existing tracks.

During races, the player can perform skateboard and snowboard-like tricks, like grinding on a rail or spinning in midair, in order to get additional points. If playing a “bully” character, they can also collide with other racers to slow them down, or if not, must avoid being hit by AI racers. A VMU game called TrickStyle Jr. was included with the title and plays in a similar manner to Snake.

Though I never played that game on the Dreamcast, nor burned it prior to the ROM sites being shut down by Nintendo, this game was part of the Y2K era. The now-defunct review aggregation site GameRankings gave it 71% (69% for the PC port), Game Informer gave it a 7.75 out of 10, and EGM (now web-only) gave it a 6.625 out of 10.

Acclaim Entertainment, the publisher of this video game, has faced controversies, such as the company making several controversial business and marketing decisions in the United Kingdom. One example was a promise that a US$10,000 (GB£6,000) prize would be awarded to UK parents who would name their baby “Turok,” to promote the release of Turok: Evolution, the then-Full House actresses the Olsen twins suing them for unpaid royalties, and the late Dave Mirra publicly disowning BMX XXX (that game was later among several titles banned from streaming by Twitch in 2015), stating that he was not involved in the decision to include nudity, and he then sued Acclaim for fear of being associated with BMX XXX. The company went out of business in September 2004 after it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Though I’m not a video game journalist by any means as I review video games and anime from the past as a hobby, the game’s official website, formerly located at http://www.acclaim.com/games/trickstyle/index.html (North America only)2, is no longer available and can only be accessed through the Wayback Machine.

This post was originally posted on Medium on April 28, 2023 while I’m migrating some of the posts from Medium to Substack.