Most things in life aren't certain, but one thing you can always count on is that a game with the MTV license will have a rocking good soundtrack! THQ doesn't disappoint with the latest in the MTV Sports lineup, T.J. Lavin's Ultimate BMX for PlayStation. Probably the most well-known band is the Kottonmouth Kings, but other rockers like 187, UXB and Millencolin make for some excellent tunage. Falling on your face after trying to get Wright Brothers with a bicycle has never sounded better! I'll be the first to admit that the X-sports trend in gaming has been played out almost too much, with the good games often obscured by a slew of copycats and posers trying to horn in on good marketing value and pop culture kiddies with money to blow. Ultimate BMX could easily have been another face in the crowd, but it works hard to stand out, and succeeds. The expectations for graphics are always going up, with Tony Hawk as the engine to beat. THQ manages to build some nice looking riders with good animations and decent tracks for them to race on. Sometimes, you'll run across a grainy surface or bad edge, but most of the seams in these levels are sewn tight. Although it's kind of weird, the funniest animation in Ultimate BMX comes when your rider crashes, and sprays blood on the ground. It's like Unreal Tournament meets X-treme Sports... Levels are wide-open and easy to navigate but I wished there could have been more to choose from, or at least some bigger tracks to explore and shred. The design is solid, but where's all the real estate?

It's close to impossible in this world to expect some genres to innovate. Fighting games, driving games and extreme sports games have only to live up to last week's release, and everybody goes home happy. Which is not to say there's anything wrong with being very good in your own field. Games like Ultimate BMX make the point that it's okay to follow as long as you don't fall behind. If you watch ESPN or MTV for the extreme sports action, T.J. Lavin is a name you know. Not having been a big skater, I can relate to bike riding. I tore myself and more than a few bikes up back in the day, so I guess I relate more to this kind of action than the skating. All right, I admit I could never roll more than a few feet on a skateboard without putting myself in the hospital. There, I said it... Starting a single-player game in Ultimate BMX means you either take practice runs or jump right into the action with Pro Circuit Mode. Practice Session is one of the cooler tutorial modes I've seen, because even though the clock isn't running, you get a visual cue by pulling off new tricks. When you take off from a jump and land something you haven't done, the piece of ground you land on turns a different color. You can move around trying different areas to see what gets you max air for tricks, and even practice grabbing the items present in Pro Circuit levels. If a track isn't unlocked, you can't ride it, but especially since the items are present and accounted for, the Practice Session is a great way to perfect your moves on a Pro Circuit course without worrying about the timeclock. After you feel confident in practice, move to the Pro Circuit Mode and find the real meat of Ultimate BMX in both playability and depth. Following the now-classic model of Tony Hawk, each course comes with several tasks that earn you sprockets, along with objectives for points that also earn sprockets. Tasks are funny, and mostly center on damaging things around you with your bike. Parents may not find it funny, but I think setting off car alarms and scaring off pigeons while getting crazy air and pulling stunts is totally cool. With the sprockets as your currency, you buy your way into a higher stage, but can always go back and replay for points, sprockets, whatever... The main thing is that it's fun to try and get the tasks done, and while some games may have you rushing on to the next level, I found myself more than one time staying in a level long after I had to, looking to earn that last sprocket! Task-oriented games are hell for perfectionists. Levels are broken up between Street (urban levels with lots of stuff to jump on), Vert (big trick potential, crammed into a small space) and Dirt (not asphalt, not grass), so there's more than just one type of terrain. Each of the 10 riders can bring unique talents to the tracks, and you can choose the strongest rider for the track style you like best.

2-Player Modes are awesome, and help take up the slack when you beat the Pro Circuit tracks. The coolest mode for me in 2-Player is Turf War. Just like in Practice Session, pulling tricks off a surface in this mode marks it as your `turf.' The player who grabs all the turf wins when time runs out, and you can even grab your buddy's turf by pulling off a better trick than she did. Cool! Several modes rely on scoring the most points before time's out, and then there's Bomb Mode and The King. The King is funny, like a game of tag. Players chase each other down to be King, which is important since the non-King doesn't score points for tricks. Bomb is just like it sounds, you riding around with a ticking package that needs to be delivered to your opponent. These modes are great fun, and would make for a good time even if people didn't love the idea of extreme sports or biking.

The sprocket system used in Ultimate BMX means nobody gets left behind. Sure, the individual goals can be difficult, but you can always leave off the hardest and still move ahead. Within later levels, the goals are consistently hard, but the point totals needed to earn a sprocket keep climbing. So, it really pays to string tricks together and learn how long they take so you know which jumps can support the big tricks. One thing that helps this is a feature that amplifies your rider as he nails tricks, until he becomes supercharged and can pull off crazy combinations. Without this, you're probably not going to make the really high point totals.

The engine Ultimate BMX runs on is nice. Not Tony Hawk nice, but nice all the same. Riders feel somewhat loose, but pulling off tricks is easy as pie. The tricks are always button+D-Pad, and you know what button to use based on where you are. The ([]) button does Bike Tricks, usually something crazy like a flip or bar-spin. The (O) button does Body Tricks, which include things like Can Can, No Footer and the lovely Superman. Finally, pressing the triangle button does Surface Tricks, mostly grinding or stalls. The amplified tricks are done by double tapping and using one of these three buttons, after you put together more than a couple great tricks. Points work on a modifier scale, depending on things like hold, air, difficulty and combinations. Control with the analog stick is fine, and since none of the tricks depend on combining button pushes or tapping LRLLR, you can relax and enjoy the ride. Some people may not like the simplicity of trick-control, and it is true that combinations requiring at least 3 buttons keeps you from pulling off the wrong trick. But, a small gripe in my opinion; most people will like not having to constantly keep the manual next to them to refer back to while learning. Ultimate BMX is instant gratification, but not to the point that the quality suffers.

PS2: The special PlayStation driver settings smoothed out some of the textures and seemed to lower load times, but the graphics are good enough already that you probably won't bother. The improvement was more noticeable in 2-Player Mode, maybe because it's more intensive on the PS hardware.

While most of the big-name extreme sports franchises are moving to PS2, Ultimate BMX is great for anyone who still wants this kind of action on the PlayStation. The fact that it's a bike game makes it all that much more interesting, and it's nice listening to some good tunes for a change. Sure, the formula has been done before, but since the whole industry generally thrives on copy-cat titles, I won't fault Ultimate BMX for being just what it is. In fact, the 2-Player Mode has enough good stuff to make this a recommendation over at least a few of the other extreme titles. Rent this for fun, and you just might end up wanting your very own copy.