SEGA Extreme Sports took the Dreamcast to the max

It’s easy to forget that the SEGA Dreamcast was the most technically advanced console available when it launched, making the PSone and N64 look considerably dated in comparison.

Sonic Adventure initially wowed gamers and critics alike, featuring heavily in marketing campaigns. Later during the console’s short life titles such as Metropolis Street Racer and Shenmue impressed players with their intricate level of detail. You could also consider Quake III Arena a mini marvel, offering online play and with much of its gothic architecture intact. Even when the PlayStation 2 launched the Dreamcast was able to go toe-to-toe, at least until the second generation of software arrived, with Soul Calibur and the ‘curvaceous’ Dead or Alive 2 able to match what Tekken Tag Tournament had to offer.

There’s another Dreamcast game out there that can be considered impressive too, both visually and from a technical standpoint – and it’s one that isn’t mentioned often.

The Innerloop developed SEGA Extreme Sports pushed the ill-fated console reasonably hard, with semi-deformable snow, alluring lens-flare sunsets, and a sprinkling of effects such as transparent textures. This wasn’t a typical single event-based sports package either. Six sports featured in total, merged into lengthy seamless multi-event races. A typical race involved hang gliding off a mountain, tearing through mud on an ATV, and snowboarding towards a finishing line before bungee jumping to victory. Mountain biking and sky surfing also featured, with some races commencing in the air.

All of these events had different physics and control schemes, making for a nuanced experience with a lot to master. Hang gliding through narrow canyons, avoiding trees while biking at top speed, and trying to stay on track while thrashing around on an ATV made for a racer more demanding than most. Simply being skilled at 2-3 events didn’t guarantee victory. Twelve tracks featured, set within such locations as Mount Kilimanjaro and the Himalayas, with some incorporating all six sports. All of this was accompanied by licensed music provided by Ninja Tunes.

Online functionality was included too, including downloadable ghosts and score tables. Full competitive online play was probably too complex to implement given the mixture of vehicles.

Even today, it’s hard to think of another recent racing game that covers multiple events in quick succession. Games such as Steep and Riders Republic are SEGA Extreme Sports’ modern day counterparts, but even then, only focus on single event races.

Looking into the history of SEGA Extreme Sports, it seems to have had a turbulent development. It was originally intended to be a launch title published by Eidos, but ended up being delayed by almost a year, releasing at the end of 2000. During this time publishing rights were transferred to Infogrames for the US while SEGA themselves saw the game’s potential and handled the release in PAL territories and Japan. Infogrames chose the new name of Xtreme Sports – which is about as ‘noughties’ as you can get.

The regional branding didn’t end there as a PC version was released in 2001. Infogrames retitled it once again, going with Maximum Sports Extreme. Empire Interactive meanwhile signed a deal with Pepsi, resulting in Pepsi Max Extreme Sports. For those not keeping count, that’s four name changes in total – it’s no wonder nobody talks about this title when it went by so many names.

Another thing that seems to have pushed it into obscurity is the amount of press coverage it received, along with the reviews it garnered. Despite being published by SEGA, this wasn’t something marketed heavily in the same manner as Sonic Adventure 2 or Shenmue, coming and going without much hype. We’re confident in saying that it failed to make the front cover of any of the numerous Dreamcast magazines available, although a music CD was given away with an issue of Dreamcast Magazine a few months ahead of the game’s launch. It never appeared on a demo disc either, which we feel would’ve helped sales a great deal. As for reviews, the highest score it appeared to gain was a 7/10 with criticism aimed at loose controls and iffy collision detection. Another critic claimed there wasn’t much in the way of heart and soul due to the characters being rather generic.

In hindsight, it was perhaps guilty of trying to do too much – six sports back-to-back in the same race, each with unique controls and handling, was a tall order in 1999. The change in publisher and reported funding issues probably didn’t help things either.

Twenty five years on, the mountain still calls – SEGA Extreme Sports may be a product of the era, capitalising on snowboarding’s rise of popularity in particular, yet the thought of churning through fresh snow, soaring through the air, and dodging trees at tremendous speeds still holds much appeal. Perhaps one day a developer can find a way to bring SEGA Extreme Sports back as a remaster or remake. We can dream, eh?