Sound:  
Whirl Tour’s sound is a bit of a mixed bag. The sound itself is not great, but it isn’t bad. The sound effects are rather blurry, and could have been better. The real gem in Whirl Tour is the music. The music is excellent. Although the game doesn’t boast such bands as Goldfinger and Rage Against the Machine like in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, you’ll quickly find yourself toe-tapping to some of these lesser-known bands.

An excellent concept in Whirl Tour is that you can actually unlock more songs. One of the objectives in each level is to collect 3 music CDs. Every time you grab one, a song is added to the music list you already have – and you can even customize the list of songs, in case you can’t stand hip-hop.

Gameplay:  
Normally, this part of the review is where you would read the whole “been there, done that” schpeal about how a game is a clone of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. The fact of the matter is that Vivendi Universal only borrows the original gameplay concept – skate around and do stuff – and implements an amazing array of fresh ideas to make Whirl Tour such an amazing game to play.

The story – yes, there is one – is as follows:
Flipside is a 6-member punk band that is a huge hit with the kids. The band is playing at a sold-out stadium in front of a capacity crowd. Suddenly, the 6 members mysteriously disappear from the stage in a huge flash of light. Wasa B., the band’s roadie, checks the security cameras and notices a dark figure in the control room running from the scene and into a castle. Wasa B. picks up his scooter and immediately takes chase. This is where the game begins.

From the start, you can choose the following:
Arcade Mode – a three-minute trial run of any unlocked level
Story Mode – complete objectives to advance to the next level
Practice mode – just like arcade mode, but up to 30 minutes
Multiplayer – compete against or cooperate with a friend in the game

Arcade and Practice mode are pretty much cut-and-dry, and Multiplayer mode will be explained later, so now I’ll delve into the Story mode. Here, you start off at the castle level and try to complete your objectives. The typical objectives are present, such as “get a certain high score” and “do a certain trick at a certain area.” Much like Tony Hawk, Whirl Tour follows the same notion of building up a special meter, and using it to execute special moves to earn points. While objectives like these are givens in any extreme sports game, there are original ideas not seen in any game like this. The first of which are boss battles. Each level has 2 bosses that you must defeat. This task is accomplished by doing some type of trick that hits the boss. Do this a certain number of times and you’ve won. This is an excellent idea, and I wouldn’t be surprised if future games copied this concept. Each level also has a transmitter, which must be destroyed. Once you destroy it, you’ve unlocked a race area specific to that level.

From there, you engage in a race with an opponent. Now, this is not just any old race where you need to cut corners – quite the contrary. These races are extremely challenging, and require not only speed and agility, but also a heavy use of tricks and grinds. Once you defeat your opponent, you’ll get – well, you’ll just have to find that out yourself.

So once you get a certain amount of objectives, you can access the next level, and so on until the final boss is defeated. To help you in your quest are many power-ups, which can help your abilities. For example, if you find a kangaroo icon, your jump will be much higher. If you find a balance icon, it will improve the balance of your grind. There are also scooter icons – if you pick up 20 of these, you unlock a new scooter for your character. Each member of the band has his her own scooter, and once the member is unlocked, you can choose him or her as your player.

But it doesn’t stop there. In addition to getting a high score objective done, you can try even harder to unlock additional outfits and scooter designs for your character. This is yet another original idea that makes Whirl Tour stand out from all those others.

The people who programmed this game really knew how to make it last. There are so many secrets in Whirl Tour that you’ll spend months trying to unlock everything.

Control:
Control is the most important aspect in a game like this. Airtime is only around 3-to-4 seconds long, and if your controls are off, you can kiss any high score potential goodbye. Luckily, Whirl Tour sports some amazing controls that are easy to master. Now, this is the point where being identical to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is a good thing. The controls are identical to THPS, in that A is used to jump, B is for flip tricks, Y is for grinds, X is for grab tricks, and L and R are to spin in the air. The Z button is used to speed your character up when your special meter is high enough – which is crucial when playing the racing levels. The controls are very responsive, and is one of the top reasons why Whirl Tour is such a joy to play.

Multiplayer:
Because of the adventure elements, Whirl Tour is more of a one player game than a multiplayer game. However, much like the rest of the game, there are some original concepts that make the overall game so enjoyable.

There are 3 modes in multiplayer. The first is Versus, in which you go up against a friend to see who can get the higher score in a certain amount of time. The second is Monster Trick, where you play a game of HORSE against an opponent. The third is Co-op Story, where you and a friend try to complete the level objectives together.

While the multiplayer mode does not offer a dizzying array of options like the rest of the game, what we are given is more than enough to keep the replay value up.

OVERALL:
Whirl Tour is one of those games that takes an almost beaten-to-death concept and brings new life into it. In fact, this game even creates its own genre – Sportventure.
Whirl Tour is an excellent blend of sports and adventure, and is a breath of fresh air in a world of Tony Hawk clones. Please bear in mind that this is not one of those “if you like Tony Hawk, you’ll love this” comments. This is a “you’ll love Whirl Tour regardless" comment.

 

The Lowdown on  Whirl Tour Aesthetics: Very Good Control: Awesome Gameplay: Awesome Multiplayer: Average Sound: Above Average Innovation: 6/6 Lasting Appeal: 5/6 Overall: Awesome! "Top of the Genre"