Hello. My name is Meemaw. I play video games from time to time, but I don’t like many of them. Aside from Spider Solitaire, the only game I like is Whirl Tour.

The world was a much different place seventeen years ago. Alanis Morissette was someone people wanted to hear. We were just discovering water on Mars. I still remembered my children. But above all, it is the need for extreme sports video games that defined the early 2000’s. Tony Hawk and his gang of hooligans were all the rage. No one before or since that period of time knew what a Bob Burnquist was. People were so crazy about the whole skating thing that they didn’t even care if the Hawk was the one doing it. They were even willing to flip ollies on things other than skateboards. Like scooters. They were willing to play scooter games. No, they wanted to play scooter games. This is what the history books call the dark timeline.

Whirl Tour fit that criteria exactly. Scooters, attitude, a punk-flavored soundtrack; what more could you ask? But everything that Tony Hawk did, Whirl Tour did just that much worse. It really cannot be emphasized how much momentum is killed by using scooters instead of skateboards. No offense meant to the scooter boys over at developer Papaya Studio, but it’s just not Radical™.

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Although I was battling through a haze of prescription pills at the time, I do remember a story. It’s just one cutscene before you start the game. You’re a roadie for a punk band. You’re listening along, probably wondering if it’s too late to make things right with Becca back home, when supernatural stuff starts happening. All the band members get sucked into a vortex and you decide to hop onto a scooter that was on stage and chase after them into the portal. Why’s there a scooter on stage? Who abducted the band? Who cares? Maybe the game answers these questions but I didn’t want to give up my few remaining strands of sense trying to beat this game. Did I mention the name of your Asian roadie protagonist is Wasa B.? Because oh god is your name Wasa B.

I like this game because it doesn’t mess around with any of that political correctness malarkey. There aren’t many characters but they’re all offensive to someone out there and I say good. One of the bosses you fight is a black pimp who throws basketballs at you. Another stand-out is an Indian man called the Flamboyant Flamer. Most of the times he attacks, he’ll helpfully quip, “Thank you, come again” just like my favorite fictional minority. Every playable girl character is in a miniskirt so you can get a sneak peek at that polygonal goodness when they nose pivot. What Papaya Studio knew in their black rotten hearts was that video games are first and foremost wish fulfillment. And if I can’t laugh at other cultures while riding a fucking scooter, I think we should just call this whole video games thing off.

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Oh yes, there’s also gameplay in Whirl Tour. It’s great for players who are very close to death. Even better for those lucky souls who have already left this sesspit of a life! And similar to a dead body, the controls are incredibly unresponsive. Good luck turning to grab that floating token you just passed. My advice is to just leave it. You’re more likely to have sex after riding a scooter than grabbing that trinket. Collision is also all sorts of fucked. Oftentimes, going up for a rail grind will have you bouncing off it instead or even occasionally stopping dead in place. Nothing gets me more ornery than being ten seconds away from completing an objective and then having my scooter boy rebel against my command, choosing instead to turn to a life free from scooting. I don’t blame him frankly. It’s pretty un-Radical™.

Most missions are structured identically to one another. There are tokens to grab, things to grind, bosses to defeat, and a teleportation device to destroy. This is only during story mode though. In arcade mode, you actually just do the same thing but with no missions. Why anyone would do this is a mystery. Why anyone would play this game is a mystery. I regret giving my grandson this game when he was younger. I’ve always wondered why he gives me hostile looks at Thanksgiving. Or why he fed my twin parakeets rat poison last year. But dear god, I understand why now. And I got off easy.

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Once you destroy those teleportation do-hickeys in a level, you open up a race level. Here you scoot against the Creature from the Black Lagoon and see who scoots best. If you win, you unlock a new character. The characters all have the same stats and do the same moves. Playable characters barely talk during gameplay either so it’s dependant on if you resonate more aesthetically with “Lunk” or “Roxie.” The developers were good enough to include voice clips of all the girls screaming when they drop from a high distance. The male characters don’t do this. And the screams are mixed higher than anything in the fucking world. So yeah, that’s there if you want it.

At least you’ll be able to visit scenic areas around the globe. Scoot along through known locations like Castle, Suburbia, Theme Park, and Tibet. Wait, Tibet? Everywhere else is just some bullshit dumb preschooler idea and then you just throw in fucking Tibet? Does this mean something? Did Papaya Studio want to gain their independence from the taskmasters at Vivendi Universal forcing them to make shitty scooter games? Whirl Tour might be a political statement. Doubly if you remember our Indian friend a few paragraphs ago.

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And what extreme sports title would be complete without an appropriate soundtrack? Enjoy tracks from C-tier pop punk acts known throughout their hometowns, probably. At least a few people from their high schools remember. There’s also only about seven of those tracks before you unlock more through the levels. So you’ll be hearing these tracks a whole lot. There’s one track that emphatically screams, “God, I wish I could hate you for the rest of my life.” You’ll be hearing that one a whole lot. Over and over. God, I wish I could hate you for the rest of my life. Satisfied? Soak it all in. This is what you hogs wanted. Wallow. Your sty is littered with copies of Whirl Tour.

Wait, I actually fucking hate this game.