0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - 1Xtreme (ESPN Extreme Games)

                                

ESPN Extreme Games (later renamed 1Xtreme due to the ESPN license expiring for Sony was developed by 989 Studios and was published by Sony it was released on the Playstation 1 on the 9^th of September 1995 in North America, a month later in December in Europe and the following May in Japan, the game was also released on MS-DOS in the February of 1996.

It was released in the Greatest Hits line. because the ESPN license was expired. All reference to ESPN including logo and company name were removed from its title. Game content referring to ESPN were also removed.

The game features multiple sports for the player to master including Skateboarding, Roller Blading, Street Luge, and Mountain Biking. The tracks start at one end of a city, and progress along a linear path to another point of the city. During the course of the race players try to kick and punch opponents while trying to gain cash while trying to win the race as well, the tracks are located in various places around the world including Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, Utah and South America the game also offers 2 player couch co-op.

  

Sports/ racing game no story present.

Reviews for ESPN Extreme Games are fairly decent Electric Playground giving the game an amazing 95/100 with their review stating  I wholeheartedly recommend this game. It is enormously entertaining. As addictive an excursion as I've ever enjoyed, they did have one criticism though, there are definite arguments to be made about the appropriation of Road Rash's engine as the groundwork for this disc.

The Video Game Critic with a very late review of the game coming back in 2004 they had plenty of positives for The frame rate being good even in the split screen mode, and the digitized sound effects and high-octane background music beings commendable

At the other end of the ratings spectrum IGN gave the game a lowly 50/100 with them cited as saying There're just so many games for the PlayStation that look better, play better, and are more fun.

Overall though the games reviews are largely above average or higher the next lowest rated review for the game is a 69/100 with a couple of 70 rated reviews, a 73 and an 80/100 from GamePro.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com,  eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific but from a podcast I listen too I have heard they have a huge stock of older games, I will also be including Ebay.com from now on.

So lets get down to business we may as well start with Gamedude the sites does not have the game listed either for sale or trade in the later sequels are available from them, Retrogames.co.uk does not have a copy of the game either

eStarland.com has a double pack with 1Xtreme and 2Xtreme which would set you back between $4.25 - $8.50 however is not currently in stock, eStarland offer $3 for a trade in of the game.

On Amazon the used price for the game is a varied one if you are looking for an acceptable quality copy of the game you could pay as little as $2.15 + the $3.99 for shipping there is also a used very good condition copy of the game for $4.93 + $4.99 shipping however this one has not description which is always a concern.

If you are looking for a good quality copy of the game or a like new copy the price does go up and for a couple of the copies on Amazon the price goes up quite steeply, you will be looking at $12 up to $20 or £9.20 up to about £16.for most of the better quality used copies.

A couple of the copies on sale do seem over priced, one copy which does not even come with a case is up at £39.99 + shipping, then you have a copy up at $69.99 this one is fulfilled by Amazon which is just stupid.

Speaking of a new copy this is where it gets pricey, a new copy at the minimum on Amazon will set you back $75, may as well call it $80 with shipping which is around £61 in the UK, prices reach the $100 mark for one of the new copies on sale, ignoring the insanely priced copy at $499.99 from a 1 star seller.

Moving onto Ebay.com an acceptable condition copy of the game will set you back $6.14 which is £4.68 while a good quality used copy of the game on Ebay will set  you back around $10.50, over the last 90 days on Ebay the price has been trending around the $14 mark.

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Written by

P J Gibbon