Free Running Jumps to US Shores

There isn’t any doubt that the Nintendo Wii is the most physically challenging console in history, unless you’re the kind who likes to hike with your GameBoy. Simulated tennis, bowling, baseball all that makes sense to me. All the fun of outdoorsy sports without the sunburn and embarrassingly white legs peeking out from under embarrassingly long shorts. But something about a game that simulates Le Parkour, the extreme urban jungle stunt sport, doesn’t fit. Then again, I can’t imagine it’s all that different from a video game about skateboarding.

This morning it was announced that Free Running, a 2 year old title available only in Europe for the PSP, would be making its way to the Wii, DS and PC in North America this winter. The original title featured Adidas clothing and gear, granting an air of legitimacy with their sponsorship, but the current announcement doesnt’ show any indication of the same happening for the newest platform.

Players will get 60 challenges in 10 levels across 3 environment: Urban Jungle, Docklands and Inner City. Similar to Tony Hawk games, Free Running includes multiplayer modes consisting of “Race”, “Trick” and “Target”. Also similar to later Hawk titles, the title promises completely free roaming gameplay, giving Parkour players reign to climb anything anywhere. The usual unlockables are here too, characters, clothing, music and moves open to the progressing the furthest.

At the moment, we could only get our hands on some old PSP screens and we want to assume the images for the Wii and PC are better, so we’ll update when we have the new ones to avoid confusion.