Platform: Gamecube

Genre: Sports

Publisher: Atlus

Developer: Team Poponchi

ETA: Mid November 2003

Review: Aggressive Inline (Gamecube)

Review: Whirl Tour (Gamecube)

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Go! Go! Hypergrind

Ever since California Games on the NES developers have been jumping on the extreme sports bandwagon, only to see it be amplified ten fold upon the release of the very first Tony Hawk game with one company after the next trying to cash in on the genre’s success. Much of the time these games have come from Western developers, but now we’re about to get a more Eastern take on the sport with Go! Go! Hypergrind, being developed by Team Poponchi for the Gamecube.

The game will take a far more fantastical approach to the sport, as the premise of it revolves around SPUMCO, the real-life creators of Ren & Stimpy, holding auditions for a new TV show where doing insane skateboarding tricks are the order of the day. It will be up to players to pull off all manner of off the wall tricks that certainly don’t exist in the world of skateboarding to rack up the points and lock their character a new acting gig in SPUMCO’s new series.

Features:

- Skate as one of 12 crazy, cool competitors, designed by SPUMCO, the world-famous animation studio responsible for The Ren & Stimpy Show and The Ripping Friends!

- Use the new "Negative Reaction" system to score insane points and begin your rise to stardom! Chain multiple negative reactions together with normal tricks for insane combination points!

- Powerful graphics engine allows for real-time character deformation. The wacky, cel-shaded skateboarders can be subjected to numerous humiliations, such as being set on fire, flattened and covered in paint!

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- Perform over 60 never-before-seen fantasy tricks as well as a host of real-world grinds, aerials manuals and lip moves!

- Skate on 8 gigantic, deviously designed themed movie sets each with their own stage specific traps and negative reaction points!

- Compete in a multitude of head-to-head multiplayer modes!

From what information that is available, Go! Go! Hypergrind looks like it could raise more than a few eyebrows with its over-the-top approach to the sport and the use of a “Negative Reaction” system which appears to be a means of stringing together combos to score extremely well on the game’s eight courses. At this point it remains to be seen whether this unorthodox approach to skateboarding will be a hit or a miss, but we’ll find out soon enough when the game comes out later this month.

Mr. Nash

November 1, 2003