So, the game is an arcade skiing game (a pity for the snowboarding fans) based on earning as many points as you can by performing tricks. Any trick or combination of tricks will be highly noted if you perform it on a high jump with a perfect landing. In a single jump, a combination of tricks will gather a very high score. Unfortunately the game will not offer you a wide range of tricks. These are resuming to combinations between backflips, forwardflips, rotations and three types of tricks (cross, grab and a unique one different from skier to skier).

Challenges

Every mountain has two sections in which you can earn points and money in order to buy equipment and clothes. These sections are filled with jump, pickup, rail, and gap challenges.

Jump Challenges: A series of jumps where you must perform good tricks to complete them.

Pickup Challenges: You must collect a number of stars or some hidden dogs, which are scattered along the track.

Rail Challenges: In my opinion these are the coolest ones. You must rail ice edges and trees in a given sequence.

Gap Challenges: You have to jump to a specific target, otherwise you will not complete it.

Equipment and Handling

Besides the equipment (ski and poles) nothing will affect the handling of the skier, only the look. A minus for the developer by getting only the Fischer license. It was much nicer to have more than one brand of ski to choose from. But there are over 30 different pieces of equipment to utilize including hats, goggles, jackets, trousers, backpacks, ski and poles.

Talking about the handling. It's the best I've ever seen in such a game. Very smooth and responsive, the handling of the skier is a plus. The combination tricks are easy to be performed, especially because there are not so many. But the goals of every event becomes more and more demanding and is getting harder and harder to earn more points doing the same tricks over and over again. The only solution is to increase the number of flips and rotations per every jump and repeat several tricks in a single jump.

Skier

There are 6 skier from which you can choose, each one with his unique tricks. Everyone begins with a bonus point to a specific ability (balance, trick or endurance). The other points have to be earned along the game. These skiers are the only reason that makes you play the game again, if you are nuts enough. That's because of the game's high difficulty.

{pagebreak}

Gameplay: 74

Not necessarily addictive, but relaxing if you choose not to complete it. Otherwise you will lose your temper. It's fun to play it just for the sake of looking at the replays. A wider range of tricks could made the game much more funny with more than one model of ski to choose from. The special events are almost annoying because of the goals which are almost impossible to achieve.

Graphics: 73

The graphical engine makes its job acceptable, especially when recreating the speed feeling. The blur effect is not very demanding to your eyes and increases the speed sensation in narrow places. But the environmental design is too poor. I admit that in such a game, besides trees and snow, there's nothing to see.

But compared to Supreme Snowboarding (considered by many a weak game), the environment really looks poor. No buildings, no audience, no special light effects.

Multiplayer: 75

This is the only factor that makes the game to be replayed. Supports up to 8 users simultaneously online, who will battle to become the king of the mountain. The game has also LAN and split-screen support. The split-screen support comes as a heritage from the PS2 version.

Sound: 72

I don't appreciate the idea of promoting bands through games. But 3 Feet Smaller (the name's band) really gives the appropriate flavor for this kind of game. Simple punk music similar to Blink 182 which still represents a success among the teenagers. Unfortunately there are only 14 tracks, and after a time the soundtrack is getting boring. If you shutdown the music, you will not remain with too much. That's because all you will hear is just the snow under the ski and some weird sounds coming from the skier.

Hardware: 82

This is not a next-gen game. So the requirements are really low. The game can run even on a Pentium IV first generation with at least 256MB. Games with such low requirements nowadays are rarely to be found.