Aggressive Inline is the latest in a long line of extreme sports titles trying to knock the Tony Hawk series from its perch. I first played the game at this years E3, and like many others, came away impressed with the interesting and immense levels. Aggressive Inline features essentially the same trick system as every other extreme sports game out there, but it uses an open style of gameplay that allows you to essentially perform tasks at your leisure without the panic usually associated with beating the clock.

Aggressive Inline is visually impressive not so much for the way the levels look, but because of the sheer scope of each level, and the variety of things you can find and interact with in each area. Similar to Dave Mirra, the levels found here are so immense that its easy to be intimidated the first time you play the game. The first level is a movie lot, which may not seem so bad, but then you see that its the lot, multiple sets, and even part of the city outside the lot. Once you think youve got a handle on it, you see that you can head up on the lights and theres even more going on twenty feet up in the air. Other levels include a boardwalk, cannery, civic center, museum and several others. The huge scope of the levels doesnt come cheap, as there is a noticeable lack of detail due to the limitations of the PlayStation2s memory.

The framerate is generally solid, hiccuping only when the action gets unusually hectic. The camera respectable, and does all it can to keep up with your skater no matter if theyre upside down, rightside up, falling off a ledge or grinding quickly across multiple rails. I did notice some occasional clipping, but it never caused any real problems with gameplay.

Also noteworthy are Aggressive Inlines character models, half of which are real skaters, and the other half who are fictitious. Most interesting are the created skaters, especially the one everyone talks about - Chrissy. Shes a well-endowed, attractive female who wears a schoolgirl outfit, and has a propensity for flashing her panties during big tricks. Hey, Im not saying shes my favorite, Im just telling it like I see it. Okay, shes my favorite. The rest of the skaters all animate smoothly, show injuries when they get banged up, and spill lots of blood after nasty crashes.

It wouldnt be an extreme game if it didnt feature an eclectic mix of modern music - so you just know Aggressive Inlines got a wide variety of tunes. Sublime, Reel Big Fish, Pharcyde, Black Sheep, Hoobastank, and P.O.D inspire you to glory as you play. While there is a nice variety of artists, the inclusion of only 13 songs does cause things to get repetitive, and since this isnt the Xbox, these are the tunes youre stuck with .

Theres plenty of ambient level noise - just as much as what was heard in Tony Hawk 3. Cars whiz past, birds chirp, sirens wail, subways rumble by, theres tons of stuff to hear in any given level.

Not to beat the comparisons to other games to death, but if you know the control scheme for any extreme game, you essentially know whats going on here. An interesting variation on the controls is used with the introduction of an action button. By pushing the action button, you can talk to other characters, swing around poles, vault, and even bail out of a trick. The bail button is a really great addition, as it allows you to land safely even if you miss a ramp.

The bulk of the gameplay takes place in career mode, where you pick a skater, and take them through - you guessed it - a career. Once you get in a level, youve got to achieve various goals before you are able to move on to the next level. Theres nothing too innovative here, get a certain score, get a specific amount of points in a set amount of time, perform a certain trick, all the stuff youre used to.

The way in which the game is a little different is the way in which it allows you to go about accomplishing these goals. Theres no finite time limit, you can go on and on, as long as you collect juice boxes which are scattered throughout the level. This not only allows you to take a little more time to learn the intricacies of each level, it shows off the hard work that went into the level design. While there are still aggravating and frustrating moments after failing to land monster tricks, the pain of missing a goal thats within sight because of a stingy timer is lessened significantly.

To help the games replay value, there are several challenges to take on, and theres a decent level editor as well. Your inability to create custom challenges in the editor is disappointing, as it doesnt seem like it would be too difficult to make a program that would let you assign a point value for performing X trick from Point A to Point B.

Aggressive Inline is a well-designed game that brings some new ideas to a genre that is quickly becoming stale. That said, theres still not enough new here for people that have had their fill of grinds, flips, handplants, and manuals. If you want to play a game that plays almost as well as Tony Hawk but has more interesting levels, the games worth a look.