Extreme boards & Blades
Initial Release Date: May 19, 1999
Developer: Silverfish Studios
Publisher: HeadGames Publishing
Platform: Windows
Overview:
It’s time to get extreme. Grab your gear, board or skates, because Mountain Dew & HeadGames have teamed up to bring you Boards & Blades.
System Requirements:
Pentium 166 MHZ
Windows 95/98
32 MB of RAM
4X CD-ROM Drive
Microsoft DirectX 6 compliant video card with 1 MB RAM
DirectX 6 compliant sound card
Mouse and Keyboard
85MB of Hard Disk Space
Plot:
Extreme & Boards has no story. There are no location descriptions. Are we in the United States? Who knows? There’s a competition mode but it doesn’t explain anything. Who are we competing against? Who is judging? So many questions.
Gameplay:
The player has a choice between several different skaters. However, there are no differences in attributes. Each skater plays the exact same so choosing a skater is purely cosmetic.
The controls are terrible. Tricks barely register–assuming you can actually pull them off. The physics are very flimsy which makes it even more difficult to pull off tricks.
There is some reasoning behind the poor controls and graphics.
Daniel Pool commented on the CD-ROM Fossil video about the game. Pool claimed that he was a developer on staff for Extreme Boards & Blades. Below is his comment.
Blackwell also reached out to Keith Goodwin who was a member of the band Pferd. Pferd provided music to the game. Goodwin said that the publisher was originally going to use samples or loops from Pferd’s songs but when the developers were given such a strict deadline, the songs were used in their entirety.
Goodwin also explained that it was the publisher who called their music Ska.
If a player manages to actually complete the competitive game mode, they will unlock every level. Aside from a few weird easter eggs or Mountain Dew vending machines, the levels are not interesting.
Critic reviews:
Gamespot: 5.5/10
CD-ROM Fossil 