Yep, snowboarding is cool =) .
In case you´d like to try it virtually before getting snow in your face while trying it for real,here´s your chance to do it =).
The game is quite easy to get into,after a niftish intro sequence and a short message giving you a hint what to watch out for in the current level you´re thrown right into the action.
in your face!
Speaking of the intro,its made with one of those 3d applications allowing vector (swf) output,therefore the character is a 3d model and all of his animations look smooth and perspectively right.
Sadly the vectorcount seems to be really trimmed down which lowers the overall nice,clean and hip look of the prerendered 3d parts a bit.
Anyway,the intro sequence and the one you experience when loosing your last life ,just as the character ingame are definately the best looking parts on the graphics side.
The game itself is about racing on a pretty straight track,all surrounding graphics and obstacles look nice,too but they get quite repetive after a while as they loop all too soon.
The track ground isn´t done in a vector look, instead its basically a few bitmaps plotted together and scrolling past the player in parts at an exremely high speed.
There are two sliders at the center bottom of the game area,which can be used to change the position of the "camera".
Somehow the feature seems to not have been tested in depth as you can drag the sliders in a way that the view angle either looks totally strange or even yellow circles show up inside the track (which were probably not meant to reside in the final game)
avoid the yellow blobs! and no,i wasn´t jumping there,its just that using the perspective sliders can make the perspective go totally off,or, as squize says:
That's like toaster settings where you can burn the toast
At first i was astonished by the extreme speed of the track scrolling but after a while you notice the jitters (that means some of those stripes plotting the ground get removed too early and lead to a feel of flashing for a second)) and also the cost of the immense speed which is in this case an extreme narrow track.
This also leads to one of the main problems of the game:
(Not) Being able to control your character:
The controls are quite basic,actually you only use the mouse to steer and spacebar to jump.
i can do the 360°,come on,let me do it!
Though this helps to get into the game quickly some more control features would have been nice. (i´d wish to be able to do a few different tricks like a 360° for example).
Choosing the mouse to control your racer wasn´t the best idea either as its quite difficult to be able to control your movement precisely and fast enough to avoid the obstacles .
This problem is strengthened a lot by the narrow track which doesn´t leave you much space for avoiding obstacles.
Therefore the animation you´ll probably see most often is the one of your character falling.
i have strong knees,i can take that a thousand times ;)
The highscore saving feature and lack of enemy racers are good hints that this is meant to be a coffeebreak game but especially if i´m at work and want something to distract me from busy life for five minutes,i´m not into having to see a loosing animation most of the time i play a quick game.
Another issue i experienced several times was that the player slowed down to a halt and didn´t get rollin´again for about a minute.
You have to move around to get quicker but when such a halt happens, it is all about trying to move left and right to speed up but actually wait until the engine decides to allow you to move on (this halt is also caused almost each time when you drag the perspective changing sliders).
On a sidenode there´s no pause feature,so you have to drag the sliders during gameplay if you want to give them a try.
Not being able to pause is of course not very nice for a game which is about reacting quickly (in case your boss enters the room while you are in the middle of your coffee break for example ;) )
On the good side,there´s the sound: not featuring many different tunes and sound fx, the main game tune still has groovy touch to it which made me give it a another go although the points mentioned above were already speaking against that.
So all in all,the game has an overall solid graphic side and a jiggy bg tune but the gameplay and graphic issues lead to the thought that it was overly rushed and not tested well and long enough to be able to compete against the masses of other flash snowboarders on the market.
tomsamson
