This high-speed romp from 1997 was the Nintendo 64‘s answer to the PlayStation’s wipEout series. And it was bloody good fun, we say!

The History of Extreme-G

Probe Entertainment developed this one, as part of Acclaim Entertainment.

That was the studio responsible for Turok Dinosaur Hunter (1997) and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (1998). Unfortunately, despite that success, the developer struggled and was defunct by 2004.

Its legacy is pretty strong, though. A solid line-up of games on Nintendo’s console.

Asides from its intense pace, Extreme-G is notable for its bopping soundtrack. That was inspired by Hardstyle, a type of Dutch dance music.

But, primarily, the main draw is that ridiculous speed. It shifts along at a hell of a rate. Although not quite up to F-Zero X’s standards.

Although it’s graphically way ahead of the Nintendo 64’s F-Zero romp, Probe Entertainment utilised good old Nintendo 64 fogging to do so.

With the tight track designs, you’re often left to bounce merrily off everything in sight.

There’s the option to use one of the shoulder buttons on your controller to do tighter turns, but it’s not implemented particularly well.

So you complete many races by smacking off the sides and going everywhere.

As with Mario Kart 64, though, you do get some fancy weapons to help you during the races. That and a nifty two-player mode in the championship races.

We have very fond memories of it. Extreme-G was a great fun game back in the day. One we got a lot of thrills out of.

We’ve not played it since about 1999, so we should imagine returning to it would be a bit of a disappointing experience.

These days, racing games have advanced a great deal.

However, we must say the concept for the game now reminds us of Formula E. The engines sound almost the same!

Right, so it was an alternative to the Wipeout series. Although that did end up on the Nintendo 64 anyway.

And comparing it to F-Zero X, we’d choose Nintendo’s effort. Simply as it was so blindingly fast!

Extreme-G did arrive early on in the console’s history, though. Taking advantage of its power and technical capabilities.

As with many early Nintendo 64 titles, it didn’t quite perfect it. Probe Entertainment did, however, land an impressively accomplished game.

One a bit ahead of the likes of Aero Gauge, for example, which plunged the depths of mediocrity.

And for those hours where we battled for wins at high speed, claiming extreme glory on the way, we remain thankful to it.