If Jonny Moseley isn't exactly a household name in your neck of the woods then you might like to know that, apparently, he won the gold medal in the 1998 Winter Olympics in the freestyle mogul event and revolutionised skiing by bringing a non-traditional, "extreme" style to the event. Which all makes Jonny Moseley Mad Trix sound much more exciting than it actually is. A cross between other extreme-sportsmen cash-ins such as the Tony Hawk or Mat Hoffman games and snowboarding sim SSX, it unfortunately doesn't have the cool retro style of the former or the sheer addictive, super-slick gameplay of the latter; the result is something far from "mad" and certainly less than extreme. The premise is the same as most extreme sports sims: you pick a character and then master a series of courses by pulling tricks and rail slides and racking up as many points as possible before the finishing line. There are three levels of play: Ski School, where you learn the basics, Freeride ('nuff said) and competition. In competition mode you must complete the Slopestyle Venue to accumulate medals and move onto the Big Mountain where your final reward is the opportunity to try out for a ski movie (don't ask us why).
So far so SSX, but this is where the similarities end. For an extreme-sports game this is pretty tame; for the most part the courses are little more than nursery slopes and the game is so slow that you practically have time to make yourself a cup of tea between jumping and landing a trick. The control system is very pick-up-and-play, but the library of moves you can pull off is repetitive and frankly dull when measured against other games of this type. Also, skiing is more synonymous with stockbrokers from Hampshire larging it up in Val D'Isere than underground, edgy, extreme antics, and consequently the resulting game lacks any sort of personality. Jonny Moseley Mad Trix isn't a bad game, it's just been done so much better before that you wonder why they bothered. --Kristen Bowditch
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