Street Trace: NYC - Xbox Live Arcade review

Sept 4, 2007

The apocalypse has come and gone, and the world is in ruins. Perhaps the greatest tragedy, though, is not the mass property damage or (presumably) the staggering loss of life, but more what the survivors have decided to do with the time left them. They’re wasting away their days playing a crappy extreme sport involving fidgety hoverboards, boring arenas and awful techno music.

Street Trace is like SSX meets Twisted Metal, but not even a fraction as cool as that sounds. And the reason, first and foremost, is that the game controls really, really poorly. The hoverboards are zippy and nimble, but turning is a ridiculous chore, made worse by the fact that the only way to take a sharp turn is to hit the “brakes” and become a sitting duck for a few seconds as you reposition yourself.