Static
THRASHER SKATE AND DESTROY
VIDEO GAME PREVIEW
The Characters
Axl
Kahli
Axl is your basic skate hero, like
Danny Way or Keith Hufnagel. He's
got big snaps, but he can also
throw down the tech-gnar.
Kahli is the urban tech warrior, like
Daewon Song or Danny Supa. He
locks down ledges and gets busy
on rails and gaps.
Jasmine is the girl skater who rips
guys into the ground, like Cara-
Beth on crack. Her quick spins
make her more comfortable
Jasmine
on vert than a curb.
T
HE SNOW SETTLING ON YOUR WINDOW SILL is
an unwelcome reminder of the long winter that
you're gonna have to face without being able to
take your aggressions out on the painted curb.
You've got a stack of skate videos as high as your
TV, but those are even more depressing if you
can't go out and rip afterwards. This year's solu-
tion to the snowed-in blues is the new Playstation video
game Thrasher: Skate and Destroy. We told you a little
about how it was made a couple months ago, but now
we've got a preview of the characters and the levels.
Sure, it's still not as good as a summertime session, and
you might never be able to do some of the Smolik-esque
flip-in flip-out tricks on a real board, but by the time
you come out of hibernation, you'll be Skater Of The
Year and have ripped spots across the country and the
globe without ever leaving your couch.
The Levels
This is the opening level. It doesn't have any sub-
Industrial levels because it's basically a training ground to get
you used to skating through a gamepad. "Industrial"
has a little bit of every kind of obstacle you'll encounter in the
game: ledges, gaps, rails, walls and transitions. One nice feature of
the game is you can go back to any level after you've beat it, so
once you've unlocked more tricks, you can come back and find
new lines that were initially impossible.
The New York level is the Banks
New York comprised of three sub-
levels: Subway, Washington Square
park, and the Brooklyn Bridge banks.
Brooklyn Banks
L.A.
The LA level is comprised of the following sub-levels:
Venice Beach, the LA river, and the Courthouse.
San Francisco
The San Francisco sub-levels are:
China Banks, the hills, and EMB.
Rd grinding a rail in the LA river
.The Venice Beach sub-level
has everything you might want
in a Girl video: the pavilion, the
banister ledge going down to
LA Courthouse
the beach, and even a mini-ramp. If you're really good you can
get on the rooftops and take your entire run without ever
touching the ground.
.The LA River sub-level is big and sparse with plenty of room to
practice your flatground tech. Watch out for the toxic waste that
oozes through the bottom of the banks; it ain't water.
The final sub-level in LA is another contest level. The
Courthouse is one of the most jam-packed levels, complete with
a double-kink rail and a hidden pool. If you're really a danger-
ranger you can even grind across the high-wire from roof to roof.
International
When you get good enough,
it's time to go on tour. Hit
up England and Germany in
the International level.
Ad kickflips in der über-park
select to
start ran
switch allie
The China Banks sub-level
gives you the feeling of ripping
in downtown SF without getting
kicked out every time you turn
EMB fives
around. You don't even have to worry about panhandlers, Staba.
The hills are a mandatory part of any trip to SF, and this run offers
all the planters, driveway gaps, and hydrants you could want. Just be
sure to look both ways in the intersection so you don't get clipped by
oncoming traffic.
A contest at EMB is the last section in SF, and there are no T-dogs
allowed. The spot might be gone in real life, but here you still have a
chance to 360 flip the Gonz.
Jasmine spins out in London.
360° Indy gra
Kickflip
switch 380 spin
Roach is a gritty street skater who
has the balance of a cat, like Drehobl
or Mark Gonzales. He finds lines
where others would just skate by
on their way to the ramp.
Roach
Scab
Scab is the gnar-dog supreme, like
Pete the Ox or Neil Heddings. Scab
doesn't care. His big ollies and
balls-out skating more than make
up for his lack of tech skills.
Washington Square park
. The subway sub-level is based on an abandoned subway station.
There are old trains, plenty of benches, and you can even grind the
third rail. Just be careful because there's still a train that runs on one
of the tracks. If you have enough pop you can even ollie up into a hid-
den area through a hole in the wall.
9
The Washington Square sub-level is loosely based on the park at one
end of Fifth Avenue. There's the trademark arch, but now it has trannies
at the bottom, and the three asphalt lumps you'd find in the real park have
multiplied into six or seven and are whole lot easier to skate. And, if you
want to get your Evel Knievel on, you can try to jump the fountain.
.The Brooklyn Bridge Banks sub-level is a contest level, so in addition
to the bricks that we all know and love, there are a bunch of ramps
and flat bars to annihilate. The infamous highway divider to the street
gap is also immortalized, but without the fence, so you don't have to
be Vallely to clear it.
dreamweaver
the Sega Creamcast
ISING OUT OF A MIST OF HYPE THAT WOULD MAKE
The Phantom Menace look like a sleeper indie film, comes the Sega
Dreamcast gaming system. But does it live up to its hyper-realistic
wet dream promises or is it just a digital study-hall snooze?
Ever since the Playstation invasion of the video-gaming market booted the Sega
Saturn out past Pluto, Sega's been quiet-too quiet. But now they're back in the game
(no pun intended) with the Dreamcast, and they're, looking for revenge. The
Dreamcast is a lot more powerful with a 200-megahertz processor and a built-in 56k
modem so you can go head-to-head with kids from Chesapeake Bay to China. But the
true test of a gaming system is the games that you can play on it. This is where the
Dreamcast falls short. Luckily this problem can be remedied in time, but the initial
offerings are slim pickins. Basically, if Sega had pushed back their release date a lit-
tle bit and worked all the bugs and glitches out of its games, they would have had a
solid system that might take back their share of the market. The most glaring exam-
ple of a premature release is Blue Stinger, an adventure game in the vein of Metal
Gear, which feels like it's only about 70% finished. There are inaccesable areas, dub-
bing that's worse than a B-grade kung fu flick, and monsters that come back to life as
soon as you leave the room. Some of the games are good; Sonic Adventure, for exam-
ple, is very impressive eye candy and the gameplay is also pretty fun, although the
game almost plays itself at times. If you're a hardcore gamer the Dreamcast is defi-
nitely worth your time, especially once they've had time to develop more games for
it. But if you're more of a casual consumer, stick with Playstation-at least until they
get Thrasher: Skate And Destroy for the Dreamcast.
The South Bank sub-level is based loosely
on the South Bank area of London. It offers
a giant bowl, a huge double set, and even a
hidden passageway.
The German level is a wooden über-park
called Der Kolloseum, and it's got every kind
of wooden obstacle you can imagine.
03
128 THRASHER
129