Thrillseekers
Thrillseekers is an extreme sports video game developed by Neversoft and published by Activision. The game combines elements from such hit games as the Tony Hawk skateboarding series, the Kelly Slater surfing game series, and the Mat Hoffman BMX biking series with an extensive backstory for its six main characters to create the most story-driven extreme sports game (and indeed, the most story-driven sports game of any stripe) ever made. First and foremost, Thrillseekers is an extreme sports compilation, featuring five different sports: Skateboarding, BMX biking, surfing, snowboarding, and wingsuit flying. While the skateboarding, biking, surfing, and snowboarding parts of the game all share heavy gameplay similarities with the Tony Hawk, Kelly Slater, and Mat Hoffman series of games, with trick-based gameplay and improvisation, there are key differences between Thrillseekers and those games, so as to set them apart from the already established extreme sports series that Activision has made. All five sports have been designed for a new engine, called the Thrillseeker Engine, which is essentially a modified version of the Tony Hawk engine, designed to make the sports all have a different feel to them while essentially allowing players to pick them all up quickly. The heads-up display has been stylized to match the game's motif, with slight tweaks for each character (i.e., Alex's HUD has a more “extreme” motif than Stacy's, which itself changes in the story mode the more that Stacy learns). Each sport also has a “support” bar that players can build up to make certain tricks easier to pull off, while a few tricks are only available to pull off when the meter is at a certain level. This bar is filled by impressing the character's friends, or performing a certain input at a certain time (there are other ways to fill the bar as well). In addition, unlike in Tony Hawk, situational awareness plays a big part in Thrillseekers, allowing certain characters to perform more tricks in certain parts of a stage, or after certain other tricks have been performed. The five sports themselves are described briefly here:
Skateboarding: Skateboarding in Thrillseekers is for the most part similar to how it is in Tony Hawk, though it's a bit more improvisational and a bit less technical. There are also a slightly smaller amount of tricks that can be performed. Most gamers consider the skateboarding in Thrillseekers to be slightly inferior to the skateboarding in Tony Hawk, but it's still an excellent aspect of the game.
BMX Biking: Biking in Thrillseekers is somewhat more terrain-based than it is in the Mat Hoffman series, with less opportunities to perform tricks, though it's slightly easier to perform bigger combinations. Overall, the BMX biking is probably considered the weakest aspect of the game compared to its standalone counterpart, but most players still enjoy it and it doesn't drag down the game overall.
Surfing: Surfing in Thrillseekers is incredibly fluid and fun. The Thrillseeker engine is probably best tuned for a surfing game, and the vast majority of gamers consider the surfing element of the game to be superior to the Kelly Slater series (itself considered a fantastic franchise), the best part of the game itself, and even as of 2017 ITTL, Thrillseekers is considered by many to be the best surfing video game ever made.
Snowboarding: Snowboarding in Thrillseekers is very fast-paced and trick heavy. The main comparison people make is to the White Mountain series, which doesn't belong to Activision but is the leading snowboarding franchise on the market to that point. Overall, the snowboarding in Thrillseekers doesn't quite match up, but it's close (and compared to White Mountain 3, might have a slight edge).
Wingsuiting: A sport unique to Thrillseekers as far as games are concerned (though the gameplay in parts of Pilotwings is similar), wingsuiting involves performing tricks in midair while carefully balancing between the player's speed and altitude so they can land safely. Wingsuiting is tricky, definitely the hardest sport to learn, the sport most out of sync with the rest of the game, and frustrating to some new players, but most gamers consider it quite rewarding and fun. The game designers did take some creative liberties with this sport, as real life wingsuiting DOES incorporate a parachute whereas Thrillseekers wingsuiting does not.
Thrillseekers offers three main modes: The story mode, which is called “My Epic Summer”, Freeplay mode, in which players can freely play any of the game's five sports without worrying about the storyline (and including 21 playable characters and a variety of locales, including the girls' hometowns of San Francisco and Eureka, along with various environments up in Oregon), and online mode, in which the player can challenge other players in online matches to get the highest scores. Story mode is further divided into two mode: the story itself, and challenge mode, in which various single-player challenges are unlocked over the course of the story and can be played as a sort of “sidequest”. While Thrillseekers is at its heart an extreme sports game, what truly sets it apart from other games in its genre is its extensive storyline mode, which takes the average player between 10-20 hours to complete. The game REALLY wants players to start with the storyline mode, it serves as somewhat of a tutorial that, by the time it's over, will leave the player knowing pretty much every trick in the game. Players gradually unlock items in the game as the mode is played, and when it's completed, every remaining charact (including a greatly statistically enhanced version of Stacy that boasts the best overall stats in the game), track, and costume is automatically unlocked (everything can also be unlocked in Freeplay mode, but it takes significantly longer). The story, which follows six recent high school graduates over the course of a summer vacation, was created by a team that included writers from Neversoft (including the writers of OTL's Tony Hawk's Underground and TTL's Daughter of Pearl and Codename: Siren), professional television writers (including Michelle Fazekas and Tara Butters, whose credits include Law and Order: Special Victims Unit), and the game's star Avril Lavigne (other cast members also got the chance to ad-lib lines and have some input on their characters). In order to create the game's extensive storyline mode and realistic character animations, Activision decided that the game would only be on the Nintendo Wave, due to its faster graphical engine enabling the most lifelike characters to appear in a console video game to date. The game features hours of cutscenes, necessitating one of the first double-layered DVDs of the sixth generation. It also features an extensive soundtrack which includes a mix of classic songs (such as Joan Jett's “I Hate Myself For Loving You” and Heart's “Barracuda”), newer classics (such as Bikini Kill's “Rebel Girl”) and contemporary rock and pop hits, all performed by female artists. There are also several songs exclusively created for the game, including three songs by a band called The Thrillseekers featuring three of the game's main voice actresses (Avril Lavigne, Erica Luttrell, and Lacey Chabert). The game's soundtrack includes 38 songs in all and is released on a 2 CD set at the same time as the game.
The game features six main characters. Five of these characters are experienced in extreme sports, able to perform in any of the five sports featured in the game, though each specializes in one of them. The other is new to extreme sports but is a very quick learner. The main characters are:
Alex Levesque: Alex learned to skateboard from a very young age, and was pretty much an average girl, if a bit rebellious. She had a decent relationship with her parents, but after her mother walked out and her father started to blame her, Alex lashed out more. Alex's father remarried someone Alex despises, especially since, just before her junior year, Alex's stepmom got a new job and Alex was forced to move from her hometown of San Francisco to the small city of Eureka up north. Her lashing out became full on defiance, and her relationship with her father was pretty much destroyed. Her grades and reputation began to tank, to the point where she was at risk of no longer being able to graduate high school. Due to her bad reputation, she got into numerous fights and most people at her high school were scared of her, including Stacy, who Alex begged to be her tutor. Thanks to her friendship with Stacy, Alex slowly learned to warm up to people again, and was able to graduate high school, though she doesn't plan on going to college afterward. Alex is an outstanding skateboarder. Despite her fierce exterior, she's incredibly loyal to her friends, and is a really good person at heart. Alex is voiced by Avril Lavigne and is modeled after her in physical appearance.
Stacy Summers: A brilliant student with perfect grades and a loving family, Stacy has probably the least troubled home life of any of the main girls in the game, and lives a mostly normal life in her hometown of Eureka, California. However, Stacy has become incredibly timid and withdrawn after being viciously bullied as a young girl, which culminated in an incident in middle school where she got her hand smashed in a locker. Though the physical injuries healed (except for a small scar on her right ring finger), the emotional scars from that day still linger, and Stacy was afraid to get close to anyone until Alex managed to convince Stacy to tutor her. Thanks to Alex, Stacy has become a lot more confident in herself and more trusting of others, and is willing to try all the extreme sports that Alex and her friends partake in...though with some reluctance. Stacy graduated valedictorian from her high school and plans to study mechanical engineering at Stanford. She's got blonde hair like Alex, though it's a bit lighter and tied back in a ponytail. She's usually seen wearing glasses or goggles, though she sometimes wears contacts to participate in certain sports. She's voiced by Lacey Chabert.
Vivian Martinez: Vivian is a reckless risktaker with a high tolerance for pain, as demonstrated by her not needing any help after she wipes out on her BMX bike. Though she's skilled at all kinds of extreme sports, biking is her specialty. She's Alex's second oldest friend, having met her in second grade after challenging Alex to a downhill bike race and winning (the first person in the school to be able to do so). Though Vivian's home life is definitely better than Alex's, she's had a bit of a bumpy road, often having to take care of her brothers and sisters when one of her parents is working late, leading to her often suffering from exhaustion. This has helped Vivian become more motherly and patient, and even though Vivian is initially the second hardest on Stacy (after Marina), she eventually does gain respect for her after seeing Stacy's perseverance. Despite Vivian's crowded schedule at home, she did fairly well in high school and is planning on attending Berkeley, hoping to earn her way into law school. She's Latina, with long, wavy black hair, and is somewhat modeled after her voice actress Brittany Saldita (though, to quote Saldita, “she is much younger and hotter than me!”)
Marina Hirano: Marina is an expert surfer, in fact, she's the only one of the main characters to actually participate in professional competitions in her sport of choice (and is currently ranked #6 among girls under 21 in the country). Marina was the last girl of the main cast (besides Stacy of course) to befriend Alex. The two used to be bitter rivals in middle school, and at one point despised each other, with Marina being somewhat preppy and Alex being an outsider. However, the two gradually earned each other's respect after learning how devoted they were to their sports, and eventually became very close friends (though still occasionally being at each other's throats). Marina is a perfectionist. She pushes those around her extremely hard to succeed, but pushes herself the hardest, almost to the point of self-loathing (we learn that even though she's a champion surfer, she's incredibly insecure). She does well in academics, though not as well as Stacy due to devoting more of her time to surfing than to studying. She's one of the most popular girls at her school, but this is largely due to her perfectionism more than any sort of need for superiority. Though she and Stacy have a terrible relationship at the start, she eventually warms to Stacy, especially after Stacy helps her work through her own issues and after Marina helps Stacy have some catharsis for the bullying she's suffered. Marina, like Stacy, got into Stanford, and is studying business (according to Alex, Marina “would be perfect for that because she's bossy as hell.” Marina: “Shut the hell up!” Alex: “See?”). Marina is Japanese-American, and is voiced by Jennifer Tung.
Elissa Settergren: Elissa is probably the most fearless of the game's main cast, though you wouldn't know it from looking at her: she's the shortest of the cast, about an inch shorter than Stacy, and looks very meek, with curly red hair and freckles. However, she has a proclivity for high places: bungee jumping, skydiving, you name it, she's done it. She has a particular affinity for wingsuit flying, something that even freaks out the normally very brave Alex. Elissa was in fact the first of the girls to meet Alex, as the two had class together in second grade and Elissa impressed Alex early on with her skateboarding ability (though she wasn't as good at it as Alex was). The two became very close, with Elissa's sweet nature balancing out Alex's rather hard edge. The two also shared a somewhat turbulent relationship with their parents, though while with Alex it was simply shouting matches, with Elissa it was full on physical abuse from her father, who beat her until Elissa and her mother finally got away from the situation when Elissa was ten. Though Elissa's tried her best to hide the emotional scars, they still haven't entirely gone away, and end up resurfacing somewhat after Elissa is kidnapped by a gang of criminals toward the game's climax. Elissa, like Marina and Stacy, got into Stanford (and in fact plans to room with Marina), and is studying psychology in the hopes of becoming a trauma counselor. Elissa is voiced by Francesca Marie Smith, who narrowly beat actress Ashley Johnson for the role (Johnson would later go on to say that while Smith deserved the part, not getting a role in Thrillseekers was one of her greatest voice acting regrets).
Kirsten Cole: Kirsten is an expert snowboarder and a bit of a prankster, who enjoys joking and messing around with her friends. She and Elissa both get along with Stacy very easily early on, helping to break the ice somewhat during the trip. She met Alex during a third-grade field trip to Lake Tahoe, where she taught Alex how to snowboard. The two didn't go to the same school together until middle school, but they both lived fairly close in San Francisco and frequently visited each other (and Elissa and Vivian). Along with Stacy, Kirsten has the least amount of family issues among the main cast, with a fairly normal home life (though Kirsten does have an older sister who frowns on her extreme sports hobby and prank-playing, and, being African-American, she does deal with some racism living in San Francisco that is briefly touched on in the story). Kirsten plans on attending Berkeley (and is rooming with Vivian), and though she doesn't quite know what her major is going to be, she's leaning toward geology (and geeks out a bit when the girls visit Mount Hood, joking that she hopes she gets to witness an eruption). She's voiced by Erica Luttrell.
The story mode can be broken into five “chapters”, though these aren't actually marked in the story. It includes about five hours of cutscenes (both pre-rendered and in game) interspersed with anywhere from 60-80 individual extreme sports challenges across the game's five sports that must be completed to progress. These cutscenes can be skipped by the player at any time, they can also be freely paused, rewound, fast-forwarded, or replayed from an in-game menu, meaning players who choose to do so can skip the cutscenes and enjoy only the challenges. The game automatically saves the player's last successful challenge run, and at the end of the game, the player is given the option to watch the cutscenes and challenge runs spliced in together as one big 10+ hour movie (divided into many parts so players can watch each individual segment at their leisure).
The backdrop of the story is that Alex and her four best friends: Vivian, Marina, Elissa, and Kirsten, all lived together in San Francisco and did extreme sports and lots of other things together, until Alex was forced to move up to Eureka after her sophomore year of high school. Even after moving away, Alex kept in touch with her friends, talking on the phone with them every day and visiting them on school breaks and on summer vacation. After their junior year of high school, Alex went back to San Francisco to spend the summer with her friends, having an amazing time. After that, Alex, desperate to graduate so she won't have to attend remedial school (and thus miss out on the epic summer vacation she and her friends have planned to celebrate their high school graduation), begged Stacy, who was making some extra money by tutoring students, to tutor her. After some initial trepidation, Stacy began tutoring Alex. Not only did Alex's grades improve enough for her to graduate, but she and Stacy became extremely close friends (in fact, Stacy was Alex's first friend in Eureka). As a thank you, Alex invites Stacy to come along on the five friends' epic summer vacation trip to Oregon. Stacy is eager to join Alex but is nervous about not being able to participate in all the extreme sports activities they're planning. Alex promises Stacy that she won't be pressured into participating in anything she doesn't want to, but as the six girls are driving up to the park where they're planning to spend the summer together, Stacy decides that she'd like to try some of the sports. Alex has already taught her a little bit about how to skateboard, and she's curious about just how much fun she can have doing everything else. The six girls arrive at a cabin in a park near the Oregon coast, where they'll be spending their vacation. The adventure of a lifetime is about to begin.
Chapter One: The first part of the game introduces the game's characters and serves as a basic skills tutorial for four of the game's sports, including skateboarding, surfing, biking, and snowboarding. During this time, Stacy is able to get the hang of some basic moves, and becomes friendly with Elissa and Kirsten. However, Vivian is mildly annoyed at Stacy's incompetence at biking, and Marina becomes both resentful of Stacy and furious at Alex for bringing her along (claiming that “we're not a bunch of babysitters”). The trip becomes a bit melancholy as Alex and Stacy's constant bickering with Marina starts to kill everyone's mood. The “chapter” ends with a fairly difficult BMX biking challenge that sees Vivian slowly start to come around and accept Stacy, giving Stacy a bit of hope that this summer won't be so bad after all.
Chapter Two: This chapter ramps up the challenge, as Stacy is now getting the hang of biking, skateboarding, and snowboarding at a pretty competent level. This chapter also introduces wingsuit flying, one of the game's most memorable segments and one in which Stacy forges her first truly close bond with one of the other girls in Elissa. However, the tensions between Marina and Stacy/Alex reach a breaking point that sees Marina and Alex nearly come to blows and Stacy break down sobbing in her room and ask Alex to take her home. Alex is set to take Stacy home, but Stacy at the last moment decides to stick around. It's a real bonding moment for Alex and Stacy in which Alex promises to do anything Stacy needs to make her comfortable on the trip. We also see somewhat of a softer side to Marina, who sheds a few tears herself after being told that Stacy wants to leave. The final challenge of the chapter is a surfing challenge that sees Stacy finally start to win Marina over.
Chapter Three: This chapter features the toughest challenges to date, in which Stacy becomes very good at all of the sports, including surfing and wingsuit flying. She's not as good as the other girls yet but she's definitely a quick learner and is soon riding alongside them in a variety of challenges. Marina and Stacy have an emotional talk, patching things up between the two of them (Marina is particularly heartbroken when Stacy privately tells her about the hand smashing incident, the realization that she's brought Stacy's old trauma back to the surface causes her to break down sobbing), and in general, Stacy forms a close bond with all the girls. The chapter ends with a difficult skateboarding challenge, then a cutscene in which the six girls sit around a campfire looking out over the ocean, laughing and talking and having an amazing time.
Chapter Four: This chapter begins with a radio announcement about four escaped criminals who stole $25 million from a federal bank and are extremely armed and dangerous. The criminals themselves are introduced by a cutscene where they murder a forest ranger (offscreen, but we hear the gunshot). While out exploring, the girls stumble on the criminals' money. As tempting as it is, the girls don't take any of it... until Stacy points out that perhaps the girls SHOULD take it...to hide it and keep the criminals from escaping with it until they can notify the police. Alex and Vivian are on board with the plan, though Kirsten and Marina are somewhat reluctant and Elissa is in the middle. This leads to the criminals eventually discovering the girls, and after a series of challenges where the girls split up and there are some narrow escapes, they manage to isolate and kidnap Elissa, then call Alex and demand their money back in exchange for Elissa's safety. The problem, however, is that in the chaos of the chase beforehand, the money ended up getting buried after a cave-in and the girls can't get to it (also, the criminals are planning to murder Elissa and all the other girls anyway). They decide they have to rescue Elissa, and lure the criminals away using themselves as bait, while Alex goes in to save her. However, the plan goes somewhat awry. Fortunately, Elissa is able to free herself from her bonds and escape the cabin where she's being held. Just as she's exiting the cabin, the criminals discover she's escaping and chase her to a cliff. Stacy, who is in a rented helicopter hovering nearby, sees Elissa. Stacy is wearing a wingsuit, and Elissa tells Stacy that she trusts her before jumping off the cliff. In one of the game's most dramatic and difficult challenges, Stacy has to dodge gunfire and maneuver herself to catch Elissa, AND land safely with the wingsuit. She of course catches Elissa and the friends share an emotional reunion. There are a few more challenges in this chapter which set up the girls getting the criminals captured by the police. With the girls' lives out of immediate danger and the criminals captured, they can enjoy the rest of their summer.
Chapter Five: A sort of denouement chapter where the girls enjoy the remainder of their summer, interspersed with the story mode's toughest challenges to show that Stacy has truly mastered each sport. The game ends with one final challenge incorporating all five sports before the girls end their summer. The girls have bonded immensely over the course of the game and are now ready for college. Stacy offers to help Alex study to get into college next year, and in the meantime, offers to let Alex room with her in her apartment off-campus. While Stacy's parents have given Stacy enough money to support both herself and a roommate, Alex says that while she's studying she'll take up a job in Palo Alto overcharging rich tech geeks for skateboarding lessons. The girls all agree to meet up the next summer for another vacation, and the story mode ends with the six girls driving back home while playfully arguing about where to go.
Thrillseekers is released on August 17, 2004. Activision gives the game one of the most extensive marketing campaigns yet seen for a video game, including TV, radio, print, and signage virtually everywhere (it's almost impossible to go into a store that sells video games during the summer of 2004 without seeing at least one lifesize cardboard cutout featuring one of the main characters). The marketing campaign is directed at both girls and boys, with Activision hoping that the game sells equally among both. It's easy to pull in girls due to the game's focus on female main characters and highlighting of popular women music artists and the white-hot skateboarding star Avril Lavigne (who at this point is as famous if not moreso than Tony Hawk), but pulling in boys is a bit more challenging. Though the six main characters are all attractive young women, there's not all that much in the way of fanservice: the girls all dress fairly practically most of the time, sporting t-shirts and jeans, though we do occasionally see them in wetsuits and two-pieces when they're near the water). Advertisers do play up the game's “punk” angle and emphasize extreme sports action heavily when marketing the game for male gamers, and they do try to emphasize what fanservice the game does have. The critical reception toward Thrillseekers is stellar, both for its gameplay and its story mode, which is praised as featuring six of the best written video game characters in any game ever made. It's one of the year's best reviewed games, though in an extremely crowded year, it fails to compete for very many Game of the Year awards, and reception isn't quite as good as the very best games in its genre, such as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2.
As expected, the game is a massive hit among girls and young women, though plenty of male gamers buy and enjoy it too. It sells more than 400,000 copies in its first week of release and would ultimately become one of the best selling Wave titles of the year. It launches a franchise of related merchandise, including spinoff games, a line of sports gear and apparel, a toy line, and more. It would receive spinoffs and sequels that continue to this day, an animated series, several junior novel series, and at least one comic book series. It cements Avril Lavigne's place as the most popular skateboarder on the planet, and it drives a major boom in girls and women getting into extreme sports, in the same way that The Hunger Games drove girls' interest in archery IOTL. It also becomes one of the most popular fandoms for fanfiction on the internet, particularly slash fanfiction: as of TTL 2017, there are over 21,000 Thrillseekers fanfics on Fanfiction.net, with at least 100 stories each for all 15 possible pairings amongst the six main girls (including nearly 4,000 alone for just Alex/Stacy). Though each of the girls mentions interest in boys at least once over the course of the original game (and Marina, Vivian, Elissa, and Kirsten all have at least one canon relationship with a boy over the course of the series), the series' creators never officially confirm any of the six main girls as exclusively straight, opening the door for fan speculation and theory (though that door would have opened regardless, the creators' stance encourages it even further). Thrillseekers would ultimately become one of the most popular LGBT fan communities on the internet, and Avril Lavigne, despite being straight herself and despite the character Alex being based on her, shows support for fan theories that interpret Alex as a lesbian or bisexual (and has stated during more than one interview that she reads Alex/Stacy fanfiction). Thrillseekers plays a major role in the transition from “riot grrl” to “skater grrl” in popular culture, initiating a massive wave of pro-feminism sentiment in the extreme sports community and being the culmination of the trend that Avril Lavigne started in the late 1990s.
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Soundtrack:
Disc One:
1. “Up For Anything” by The Thrillseekers (original song TTL, main theme of the game)
2. “Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill
3. “You Better Run” by Pat Benatar
4. “I Hate Myself For Loving You” by Joan Jett
5. “Don't Wait Up” by Mandy Moore (original song TTL)
6. “Stand Together” by Destiny's Child (original song TTL)
7. “The Adulteress” by The Pretenders
8. “What I Am” by Edie Brickell
9. “Trouble” by Pink
10. “Hazy Shade Of Winter” by The Bangles
11. “Not That Kind Of Girl” by Vitamin C
12. “Barracuda” by Heart
13. “Soulcrushed” by Bratmobile (original song TTL)
14. “Bare Knuckle Girl” by Shampoo
15. “Pretend We're Dead” by L7
16. “Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)” by Blu Cantrell
17. “Supernova” by Liz Phair
18. “Bathwater” by No Doubt
19. “Chase Me” by The Thrillseekers (original song TTL)
Disc Two:
1. “If You're Gonna...” by Natasha Bedingfield
2. “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac
3. “I Am Not Your Gameboy” by Freezepop
4. “Step Aside” by Sleater-Kinney
5. “Zombie” by The Cranberries
6. “Savior” by Alison Pipitone (original song TTL)
7. “The Fight For Love” by Julieta Venegas (original song TTL)
8. “Cherry Bomb” by Joan Jett
9. “Even It Up” by Heart
10. “You Learn” by Alanis Morisette
11. “Needy” by Pink (original song TTL)
12. “Aqua Girl Star” by Huggy Bear
13. “Middle Of The Road” by The Pretenders
14. “Big Exit” by PJ Harvey
15. “We Got The Beat” by The Go-Go's
16. “Destruction Pancake” by Puffy AmiYumi
17. “Edge Of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks
18. “Today's The Day” by Aimee Mann
19. “Unconformity” by The Thrillseekers (original song TTL, end credits song)
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“Tomorrow will see the release of the video game Thrillseekers, featuring extreme sports like skateboarding, snowboarding, and flying through the air in a wingsuit. There's a key difference between Thrillseekers and other games like it: unlike previous games which featured male athletes like Tony Hawk and Mat Hoffman, Thrillseekers features a group of high school girls, with a voice cast headed up by skateboarding superstar Avril Lavigne. The game's producers hope that the female cast will set Thrillseekers apart from other sports titles on the market, and it's already generated a lot of buzz among girls and women eager to step into the shoes of characters more like them. Our Janet Shamilan reports on one of the year's most anticipated new games.”
-Tom Brokaw, from the August 16, 2004 broadcast of the NBC Nightly News
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“So, it's been ten years since Thrillseekers was first released, and with the recent release of the HD remake of games one and two for the series' tenth anniversary and with the recent passing of Vivian's original voice actress Brittany Saldita, I feel like now would be an appropriate time to go back and give some of my thoughts on this iconic game.
From a technical standpoint, Thrillseekers was incredibly impressive for its day, with realistic character animations and gorgeous graphics in both gameplay and the game's extensive full motion video cutscenes. But I'd like to go back and analyze the game from a feminist perspective. There are a lot of things to be praised about this game, and indeed, it remains one of the best video games of all time in terms of how well it portrays women and how positive an example it sets for girls playing the game. The six main characters of Thrillseekers represent an extremely diverse set of backgrounds and ethnicities, with no real racial stereotypes to speak of. While it would have been nice to see characters from aboriginal backgrounds in the game, it's understandable that the creators wanted to focus on only six main characters, and that there are characters in future games from those backgrounds depicted, so from the representation perspective, Thrillseekers does just fine and is indeed one of the best franchises in terms of minority representation. One negative thing I will say about Thrillseekers is that it doesn't adequately represent diversity of body types. All six main characters in Thrillseekers, even the 'geeky' character Stacy, are thin, fit, and athletic. While I will credit the game in that it doesn't objectify its female cast, it could have included at least one but optimally more characters with more normal body proportions. Again, it's something that's shown a bit more in the game's sequels with characters like Morgan and Syrene, but it would have been a big step forward if one of the main six characters had a larger build, so as to represent a number of potential body types that young women can have. These flaws are indeed quite minor but still important to point out from an intersectionality standpoint, and it is good to see that the creators of the series, themselves a diverse group of women and men from numerous racial and financial backgrounds, address these flaws as the series goes on.
But for all the good that Thrillseekers does in its depiction of girls, the most positive aspect of the game, and the most progressive from a feminist standpoint, is how the six main characters treat one another. With the brief exception of Marina in the first half of the game, these six girls are extremely positive and encouraging of one another, and indeed, a crucial mechanic of the game involves being supported by the other girls. When being emotionally supported by another character, your character can perform more and better tricks and score more points, in stark contrast to games like Grand Theft Auto that reward you for violently murdering other characters. Even Marina eventually comes around to become supportive of Stacy, once the two come to understand one another. The girls don't tear each other down, or make fun of one another, or compete over boys with one another. In fact, even in the game's sequel when the girls are seen with boys, they never try to 'compete' over each other's boyfriends, and indeed, the girls' relationship with men is a very, very, VERY small aspect of their characters overall, with their relationships to each other and their own unique interests forming the core and essence of their characters. This game promotes an extremely positive view of feminism and captures the core of what feminism is really about: women supporting other women. The characters are unfailing in their support of one another, particularly Alex and Stacy, whose relationship, as best friends and possibly a romantic relationship depending on your interpretation of the characters, is based on unwavering support and acceptance. Alex is unfailingly patient with Stacy and accepting of her flaws, and Stacy is likewise toward Alex. The entire series, but particularly the original game, is about acceptance and encouragement, and sends one of the most positive messages to young girls that a game can possibly send. It also goes without saying that the original game passes the Bechdel Test... 170 times over. More than any game before and more than a very, very tiny number of games since.
Thrillseekers came along at a time when games featuring positive feminist messages were becoming increasingly difficult to find, after peaking in the late 90s and early 2000s. It came along at a time when I was ready to quit on games all together, but seeing the advertising and hype for Thrillseekers led me to believe that I had to buy this game. While not a fan of sports games in general, Thrillseekers spoke to me, and playing through the story mode not only showed me how fun these types of games could be, but also showed me that there were still beacons of positive feminism in games and that women's voices were not being completely ignored. It remains one of my favorite games to this day, and continues to be an example that games don't have to push fun and technical accomplishment aside in order to present a diverse and feminist message.”
-from a video blog posted by Anita Sarkeesian on October 1, 2014
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Ted Crosley: So everybody here at G4 is loving Thrillseekers, but let's hear from another of the game's stars, she plays the voice of Vivian and she's a very, very close friend of mine, she can't personally be here today but we can talk to her live on video chat, it's Brittany Saldita!
*Brittany appears on a screen, her stomach is very big by now but she's still eager and energetic to talk about the new game.*
Ted: Awesome to see you again, Brittany, hope you and the baby are doing well?
Brittany: *rubbing her tummy* So close now, just a few days away!
Ted: Well, Thrillseekers is coming out tomorrow, how excited are you for that?
Brittany: Hella excited, seems like everybody's really hyped to play! What did you guys think of the game?
*Cheering can be heard from Ted's fellow personalities on set, which include numerous G4 co-hosts and a number of Thrillseekers cast members, including Avril Lavigne, Jennifer Tung, and Francesca Marie Smith, along with guest athletes Tony Hawk, Kelly Slater, and a few NBA and NFL players as well*
Brittany: Sounds like you're having a big party!
Ted: It has been a great launch party for the game and the reception has been pretty much unanimously positive here.
Brittany: Who's your favorite character, it's Vivian right? *laughing*
*A few cheers go up at the mention of Vivian, especially among some of the guest athletes.*
Ted: Have you gotten to play yet?
Brittany: Believe it or not, I haven't gotten to play the final version of the game! I've been so busy and they're not actually giving me my copy until tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to sit down and play it a little bit then, assuming I'm not having the baby then!
Ted: I can see you in labor in the hospital, lying there and playing the game.
Brittany: *laughing* That's probably what's gonna happen, the doctor will be mad at me but you can't keep a gamer girl from her games.
Avril Lavigne: Hell yeah! *waving at Brittany*
Ted: Now I've asked some of your fellow cast members this, but I'll ask you: what kind of impact do you hope this game has on girls who want to play games featuring female characters?
Brittany: Oh man, you know, I think this game is going to create an all new generation of gamer girls. This game has pretty much the best cast of characters ever, it's so diverse and these girls are so awesome and inspiring that I think it's going to get millions of girls into the hobby. There were times I was reading the dialogue that I just cheered, it's such a fun and empowering game and there's no question that it's going to have a positive effect on everyone who plays it, not just girls but boys too. I think boys will see the pretty girls on the cover and be sucked in and then they'll see that these girls aren't just pretty faces but kickass and amazing young women and I think they'll go back to games like Syrielle or The Darkest Ritual that they might've skipped before because of the girl characters and they'll play those games and love them too.
*The crowd cheers at Brittany's response.*
Ted: So can you see this being the first game that your daughter plays after she's born?
Brittany: *laughs* I might start her on something a bit easier first, but yeah I can see this being one of the first!
-from the G4 Thrillseekers launch special, broadcast on August 16, 2004
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“Twelve years later and Thrillseekers and I are as close as ever. Of course, it's not just because my mom voiced one of the main characters. Thrillseekers and I have been linked since the day I was born: August 17, 2004, the day the game was released. I've always felt a bit bad that my presence in mom's tummy prevented her from doing most of the promotional appearances for the game, especially when the cast got to go surfing together. I'm sure mom would've loved that since she grew up in Santa Cruz and surfed quite a bit when she was young. She probably could've outsurfed any one of her castmates! ...well, except maybe Avril. It was super nice of Avril and Lacey to send mom their well wishes that morning on Good Morning America while mom was in labor with me, and the two of them, along with Francesca and Jennifer, were some of the first people to come visit me after I came home from the hospital. And the first time Erica came down from Canada after I was born, visiting us was pretty much the first thing she did too! I still have all the pictures of the five of them fawning over mom's tummy during her pregnancy, and I'm sure I absorbed a little bit of all their love in the womb.
I love Thrillseekers, it was one of the very first video games I played, and I've played pretty much all the spinoffs and sequels. My favorite in the series is Thrillseekers 2. I've seen every episode of the animated series too, of course. People ask me if I get sad when I play the games and hear mom's voice....I used to get a bit sad but now I just smile. Vivian was one of the legacies mom left, such an amazing character and every time I see and hear her I think of mom and I smile so much. She loved working on those games. Cristina Milizia does the voice of Vivian now and she's amazing too, and I don't mind playing the newer games and watching the web shorts with Cristina's voice in them. I still go back and play the old games every chance I get, and there's mom, waiting for me. Of all the amazing things mom did, this amazing franchise is one of my favorites. It connects me with my mom across time and space and beyond. I would say Vivian Martinez is my favorite fictional character of all time, and she is, but that will never be 100 percent true because there's a piece of her and of this game that will forever be real to me. I love you, mom.”
-Regan Vivian Hardwick, in an article posted on The Nerdist, August 17, 2016
