Extreme, when used to describe sports, can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it means frisbee-chucking bong monkeys breaking their arms while practicing their Tony Hawk or Jackass impressions. Sometimes it doesn't mean a thing—I give you snowboarding. In the case of XGRA it means gravity-defying, super-fast motorcycles with weapons and a license to blast the you-know-what out of your opponents. The Association is a league of sponsored riders and their teams and as a single player you're thrown into a mix where assassinations of other riders are a common contract bonus clause.

That's all part of the Season 2080 mode, and that's where your efforts will unlock bikes and tracks. There's also Time Trial, for racing against the clock, and Arcade, for racing against a live opponent.

The actual racing is challenging at first, with very touchy controls and fast tracks, but once you get used to it you won't have too much trouble winning a race – if that's your goal. You'll definitely lose a few races in order to take out other riders. The contract objectives don't always mesh well with trying to win.

The tracks themselves are designed well, with spots on the moon, the bottom of the ocean and a nuclear plant among the more unique locations. There are lots of twists, upside-down ramps and powerups along the way, but the graphics just don't hold up. There isn't much detail and some tracks are far too dark to appreciate what detail is there. As you get better, can get around corners cleanly and hit all the speed strips littered throughout the track your reward is more jumpiness and slowdown. Racing in multiplayer (up to 2 on the PS2 and 4 on Xbox) is even worse.

The wrinkle in XGRA is in the weapons, but they fall flat, too. Mounted machine guns are a given and are a trusty standby once you get good enough to keep a bogey in the sights. But there are also energy blasts, mines, shields and a few others. The mines are fun to drop in the way of a human opponent, but against the computer you won't get to see the results so there isn't any satisfaction in using them. The most powerful weapon you'll get is Deathstrike, a blast from an orbital weapons station that completely demolishes its target.

The background sound during a race comes in three varieties, selected in the options menu: rock, dance or a mix of the two. It's a decent selection of tunes, and having them in categories is handy for placating one mood or the other. My first thought was that it would have been nice to see a few more genres but, honestly, who wants to race to blues, pop or hair bands?

At first glance, with it's twisting, gravity-defying tracks and fluorescent visuals, XGRA might remind you of the recent F-Zero GX. Upon further inspection it's actually slower, sometimes much slower, less colorful and a lot less interesting. It's not terrible, but there are many racing games in stores now that are far better. It's not encouraging that once you get good enough to go fast, the game bogs down. Even at a bargain price it's hard to imagine this game feeding anyone's fix.