What happens when you take modern motorcycle racing and throw it into the future? According to Probe Studios, you get
Extreme-G, a supersonic race to the finish on
heavily armed rocket-powered hyperbikes.
The races are blindingly fast and put a lot of focus on weapons, which range from the bikes' built-in energy weapons that get recharged each lap, to the
pick-ups that include missiles, mortars and a massive shockwave emitter. And some more odd things too.
The game has all the usual racing game modes, plus a couple of weapon focused ones: the single player
Shoot 'em Up mode where players destroy moving targets over 3 laps of a track, and a multiplayer Battle mode where there's no track, just an enclosed arena and a lot of weapons.
And on top of all that, a pumping electronic soundtrack.
Extreme-G contains examples of the following:
- Announcer Chatter: The Continuity Reboot XGRA had two announcers that would make quick taunts and quips to each other while describing the upcoming race.
- Also while racing you're coach will either praise you, encourage you, or berate you based on what position you are in when completing a lap.
- After the End: The implied setting.
- Artificial Brilliance: In XGRA destroying a rider won't take them out right away. Instead their bike will burst into flames and keep going for a few seconds. If the reacer is still in front of you they will try to make sure that you crash into their burning wreckage to cause major damage.
- Artificial Stupidity: In XGRA there is a glitch during race replays that causes your racer to repeatedly slam and grind against the walls of the track until it destroys itself, regardless of whether or not you even won the race.
- Awesome, but Impractical: In Extreme-G 3 during season mode it is possible to upgrade the engine of your bike so much that you can easily outrace the competition and just outright plow through the sound barrier mere seconds after crossing the starting line, but crashing or colliding with racers or walls is either severely damaging or will instantly kill you.
- Deflector Shields: Take damage from weapons, can be recharged with a special pickup in the first game or a designated repair/recharge area in the second.
- In the first game, outside of Battle mode you can't be destroyed. Instead, if your shield is damaged, you slow down more when you're hit by weapons. Which damages your shield more.
- Enemy Chatter: In XGRA attacking or being attacked by an opposing racer will have them taunt you in some way. It changes based on their/your current status (Near-death, just started, etc.) and how long the attacks have gone. Some riders may even hold a grudge the whole race until it ends or one of you is destroyed.
- Energy Weapon: The bikes in the first game all have one of three types of these built in that can be used until it runs out of power, which gets recharged every lap. There's a laser, and two different types of Ray Gun, "Pulse" and "Excel". In Extreme-G 2, they all share the same chargeable blast that, at higher levels, can bounce off walls and automatically aim toward enemies.
- Used as a staple of the series. All weapons draw from the same energy pool and in Extreme-G 3 can be refilled by running through recharge strips along the track.
- Pushed a step further in XGRA as there are no more shield/energy strips on the tracks. Weapons and shield recharge on their own with no delay, effectively giving the weapons Bottomless Magazines.
- Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The Nintendo 64 version of Extreme-G has a "Special Edition" in Germany that came with a music CD.
- Macross Missile Massacre: In XGRA the rocket main weapon has this function for its 2nd and 3rd upgrade levels. The 2nd level unloads a small salvo of dumb-fire rockets, while the 3rd level unleashes a barrage of homing-missiles.
- More Dakka: The "railgun" you can pick up in Extreme-G 2 has the fastest firing rate of any weapon in the game and automatically targets a nearby enemy. Almost makes up for it not being an actual railgun.
- Inverted in Extrene-G 3 where the railgun is the resident sniper weapon, requiring a long charge for maximum damage and being very difficult to aim and connect.
- Played straight again in Extreme-G 3 with the default machine gun weapon, and the rear-turret.
- Names to Run Away From Really Fast: All bikes have a threatening-ish nickname, though many of them verge on cheesy.
- Sdrawkcab Name: The name of the mirror tracks in Extreme-G 2 are written this way.
- Stuff Blowing Up: A lot of the pickup weapons are missiles, and those that aren't often explode in some way anyway.
- Epitomized with the Overlord secondary weapon in XGRA. In short: A mortar-launched mini-nuke.
- Wacky Racing: Futuristic RC bikes blowing each other up in a bunch of ruins. The sequels make them manned and rocket- propelled.
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