Racing sequels typically take the same formula, refine it and have a bunch of new tracks, but XG2 feels a lot further apart from its predecessor than I expected. While I can easily see people preferring this, the differences are not ones I like.

The biggest ones are due to the tracks. The originals were colourful, but also fairly simple, allowing you to remain full speed throughout most of the game. In XG2, they’re very dull in colour and work against the speed of the game, requiring a lot more care to navigate.

Contrasting the lack of colour are the extremely out of place billboard for Diesel and Storm – with Storm even getting a permanent place as the lap timer on the HUD. They really don’t gel with the style of the game, and there are far too many of them.

There is a a good umber of levels this time, and there are different variants that take different routes – annoyingly, though, the barriers blocking the routes used in the different versions are incredibly gaudy and, like the billboards, detract from the tracks.

The game is still a lot of fun, with an immense sense of speed when the game lets you, yet it feels a bit more clunky from the original and there’s just something that feels missing that I can’t quite figure out.

The preference of the first or second game is entirely down to each person, though, as some of the things I disliked will be reasons that others enjoyed this one more.

Fun

The weapons, which in the first game took a back seat to wrestling with your bike, are now of greater prominence. There’s a lot of jostling for position this time around, and lining up an opponent in your sights to let rip with a fusillade of rockets is a far easier, and more tactical, prospect.

Jes Bickham, N64 Magazine #23. Review Score: 85%

Remake or remaster?

A remastered Extreme G collection would be nice.

Official ways to get the game.

Extreme G 2 is available on Steam, however, this is a re-release of the old PC version, with minute support for modern systems. Controllers don’t work well with it, and this version of the game lacks any kind of analogue movement. It also has a different soundtrack.