I've sat on this game in various stages of half-playthroughs for almost 20 years and I extracted 99% of the enjoyment in the first 35 minutes. The game puts a very strong foot forward for a budget, Nickelodeon licensed title, but that leg stands entirely alone like something out of everyone's favorite holiday movie.

In absence of experience with, in hindsight, several competing x-games classics like Tony Hawk and SSX, this game delivered a beyond-expectation street skating experience. The Ocean Shores hub world is tiny, but a complete treat to return to between levels and Mad World lives up to its source material by being an encompassing playground to push your skate skills. That said, that damned leg stands there alone on the stage. The game barely pushes you to engage with the skating and doesn't even consider challenging you.

In short, 85% of the game and 99% of your time is spent on faulty (and wheeless) platformer combat and forgiving, but alarmingly mundane collectables and mini-games. Sports action, when you account for what the game actually demands of you, is essentially never used to progress. Outside of a random bumper-car tournament, there's not any sense of opposition. It's like someone built a hand-crafted grocery cart for use exclusively in North-East regional Olive Gardens.

Ultimately this is just one of those few Gamecube games you'll actually find for sale in a game shop these days, next to stacks of Madden '02. The characters are one note and undeserving of memes or 30-year-old-goth cosplayers. No one's going to come rescue its missing movie decades later and there are no concert acapella covers of its theme song. The game is bad, but I don't want the time back, I want the years. I want to take back the fight I had with my Dad when I had him try it and I couldn't explain the controls outside of 'Hold R', I want someone's face to light up when I say 'woogedy' or mention the ancient Hawaiians, I want the genuine, kind and punkish sports stars of our past to have the same enduring legacy as the ones that turned out to be shitty people.

But I would have settled for more hoverboard levels.