With skate games you automatically think of the Tony Hawk franchise, which, to put it safely, is the norm for this genre and everything else is just an inferior clone. On the surface Go! Go! Hypergrind is such a title, but once you figured out the mechanics you're in for a pleasant surprise. This game combines the essence of Tony Hawk with some goofy cartoon-like elements resulting in an entertaining piece of work. The game features character designs of Spumco, creators of Ren and Stimpy. Therefore it is no wonder that cel-shading is used for visuals and it ended up nicely for this game with bold, colorful and sharp graphics.

The basics of the game are like any other skate game, but the twist comes with the so called negative reactions. This means that you have to put the hurt on your character by riding into certain hazardous objects like a chainsaw or TNT barrel. When you're close enough a little icon is displayed on your screen, then with a simple button press this will result in nice feats like getting decapitated, being ignited or getting hammered into a small package. The trick is to link as many reactions as possible to obtain more bonus points.

The controller set up is petty similar to the Tony Hawk games, which always have been user friendly and easy to master. The difficulty level, experienced on the demo, is pretty easy when it comes down to making grinds and manuals, even performing combo's will go smoothly if you're no stranger to extreme sport games.

Each character has its own set of unique moves and the influence of Spumco surely got through there, like one of your characters accidentally swallows half his body while doing an air and pretty much suffocates in the process. You got to love that sadistic humor.

Go! Go! Hypergrind doesn't ride the Tony Hawk and/or cel-shading bandwagon and has enough features to stand on its own two feet. Keep an eye out on this game, as it may be a wacky experience for you.