I’d like to tell you that I spent a lot of time researching today’s Radical Retrospective. I could tell you that I was planning a piece on Disney’s checkered history with extreme sports games, or abandoned skateboarding games from PC gaming’s weirdest decade, and I’d be telling the truth, but neither of those brought me to Disney’s Extremely Goofy Skateboarding.Â
So why are we here? Because I woke up with this stupid riff in my head a couple of days ago:
Pretty heavy, right? I got this game in a box of Cocoa Krispies, and it sucks pretty much as much as you would imagine it does. No, you will find no hidden gem here; there is just not much redeeming value to find. I think the knockoff Rob Zombie riff is probably the coolest part of the game, or the fact that it came on one of those miniature CD-ROMs.
Wait, you want me to go back to the Cocoa Krispies thing? Sure, Cocoa Krispies is a rice-based cereal from Kellogg’s with a mild chocolate flavor, released in the 1950s. It turned your milk kinda-sorta chocolate-y, or at least a shade of grayish brown. Sometimes, Kellogg’s would put toys or random CD-ROMs in the box, occasionally even fully functioning video game consoles.
Cocoa Krispies (or were they called Coco Pops where I grew up?) were sometimes cross-pollinated with other Kellogg’s cereals like Chex to form funky hybrids like Cocoa Chex. In Canada, it was discontinued in favor of Rice Krispies Cocoa, which isn’t the same thing. Oh, there was also a version called Coco Pops Porridge, which was introduced in the 2000s, not the 1800s. I know, this can all be quite confusing, but you’ll get it with some practice.
What is porridge? Look, buddy, how young are you? I can’t educate you on breakfast; we have a bad game to talk about. So anyway, Disney’s Extremely Goofy Skateboarding is certainly a real game. There are four worlds of famously fun places to skateboard, like canyons and the beach, with three levels each.
The game plays like it was made to be included at no cost to the player in a box of cereal that only tastes like chocolate because it also vaguely smells like chocolate. Graphically, it looks pretty okay. The physics are awkward, being somehow slippery and stiff at the same time, and the tricks are either animation-locked or severely delayed because in all the footage I could find, it plays horribly.
Yes, admittedly, I didn’t replay this one. While it isn’t the first time I have had to sit out replaying a game for this column, I will admit that in this case, I didn’t try all that hard. When I was a kid, I’d happily play any dogshit game if it involved going fast and doing tricks, whether on a skateboard, snowboard, wakeboard, surfboard, or in some dire circumstances, rollerblades and scooters.
This came out the year after Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, and the year before the first of Disney’s two other skateboarding games (more on those another week). It was likely just thrown together to promote the 2000 flick An Extremely Goofy Movie, though it was later released as part of the “Disney Hits” collection of PC games. Interestingly, the one English-language review of the era seemed to like it, but they were probably just high on cereal.
Anyway, the team went on to work on a lot of other Disney games that were just above shovelware, and then the company went on to work on stuff of escalating quality until working on Hogwart’s Legacy, like every other developer who has ever lived (seriously, pretty much every game I’ve covered has staff that went on to work on this game.)
So, is it worth playing now? Probably not, but I wouldn’t know because I couldn’t get it to run. The other two Disney skate games are better, and both feature Goofy (Dingo, in some countries), and one of those games is actually really good. I do suggest clicking through to the YouTube play-through I linked above, though. One of the top comments contains time stamps for Goofy’s numerous catchphrases, and they are BAD. Still, part of me knows that this isn’t the last time I’ll try and shred Goofy Canyon, and when that day finally arrives, I’ll be sure to follow up with you all here.
In the meantime, did you play this game? Better yet, do you remember cereal? Let us know in the comments below, and chat with us in our Discord!
Photos courtesy of Moby Games.
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