One of the banes of a society where the arts (yea, even the electronic arts) must be supported by capitalism is that true innovation is not only rare, but only seldom successful. As a result, we're treated to an industry of knockoffs, where the truly great games spawn a host of imitations, and few companies are willing to step out on a limb for fear of a poor reception by the mass gaming audience.

Some games, it's true, adulterate the experience further by compiling a mishmash of several successful game elements and hoping that the resulting stew is at least moderately palatable...or at least enough to break even on the game's production costs. The old saying is true enough, however - too many cooks spoil the broth. To that end, imitators who keep it simple tend to have the most success in the shadow of the giants.

That's where Jet X₂O comes in. Like most "extreme sports" games these days, Jet X₂O takes a concept that has more or less been beaten into the ground, and tries to give it a unique spin. In this case, developer Killer Game is following in the wake of EA Big's SSX and follow-up SSX Tricky, which in turn are big-air snowboard games that borrow fairly liberally from the Tony Hawk bag of tricks.

Essentially, like most "extreme" games these days, the premise is simple: a handful of folks, desiring to be at the top of the sport, get together for a series of championship races to determine once and for all who's the Best There Ever Was. That's it. Your job is to choose a rider and a watercraft, get your ass to the starting line, and make for daylight like there's no tomorrow. Now, like SSX, you've got an assortment of tricks at your disposal that you can pull off during the course of the race for points and adrenaline boosts. The twist on that concept is that the standings in the World Tour are determined not just by your finishing place in the race, but also by where you finish each race in the trick point rankings. In other words, it's quite possible to finish every race in 3rd place, but still win the World Tour by out-tricking your competition. If nothing else, that twist definitely adds strategy to the race, because you have to balance your desire to get the finish line as quickly as you can with the need to pull off trick combos when you catch some big air.

That's another thing. Jet X₂O has around 30 tricks in its repertoire; pressing each shoulder button performs a trick, and pressing multiple shoulder buttons simultaneously will perform unique tricks as well. The square button is a modifier that can be used with any shoulder button combination to trigger yet different tricks, although be warned - you use your adrenaline boost to do this. Your choice, essentially, is between the speed burst you could get out of it, or the higher trick point total successfully landing the more difficult tricks will bring you.

The controls, while simple, are awkward at first. "Big Wave" mode will be most helpful, as it allows you a placid environment in which to experiment with the different tricks, the feel of the watercraft, as well as the way the waves ride. It's certainly a much steeper learning curve than either Tony Hawk or SSX provide, but not so difficult as to turn anybody off from playing the game.

However, despite the Tony Hawk pedigree all such games aspire to, it's clear from the start that Jet X₂O owes more to SSX, particularly where the layout is concerned. For example, both games feature the same start-to-finish course design, with multiple alternate routes and shortcuts - many of which require some skill and proper boost timing to use - that can alternately shave time off your opponent's lead...or add precious seconds to any lead you may be fostering.

If the World Tour ain't your bag, baby, there's always Race Mode, which allows two players to compete head-to-head solely to determine who's faster, or Trick Mode, where the name of the game is landing as many tricks as possible to keep the clock ticking. As soon as time runs out, you're disqualified. There are also some additional riders and watercraft that can be unlocked based upon your success in the World Tour mode, lending a little more meat to the bones of the replay value skeleton.

Graphically, Jet X₂O isn't terribly special. Oh, the framerate is solid, and the courses are certainly expansive, but the textures just generally seem to have a blurry feel. Certainly, after playing some of the more recent games to be released under the Sony label, Jet X₂O pales by comparison. True, the water looks quite nice, of course, but good-looking water seems to be a staple of gaming these days, and less something to ooh and ahh over.

Aurally, the soundtrack is decent, but other than the occasional splash and some collision sounds, there isn't really much to speak of in the way of sound effects. There is some voice acting for the various racers while the course is being loaded, but not enough to say "yes, it rocks," or "gah, it sucks."

Top to bottom, Jet X₂O is representative of what I would call an "average" game. It's certainly playable, and for those who enjoyed SSX, it certainly deserves a close look. Unfortunately, even with the addition of the "trick rankings" for the overall World Tour leaderboards, there isn't enough innovation present in Jet X₂O to really put it over the top. And that's a shame, because this game had definite potential to be more than the sum of its parts. Still, you could easily do much, much worse than take Jet X₂O for a spin.