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Review
Review by  Joe Stegner
Reviewed on 2004-11-22
Attention span: 8/10 Nice options and different courses.
Controls: 8/10 Choppy screen messes you up.
Implementation: 6/10 A tad too big and too slow.
Overall: 8/10 Nice, interesting game for a calc.

Boy, this game has been growing up right before our very eyes. I remember the first beta of it: just you going on a course for about 20 seconds. Now look at it. All grown up with different race modes and many great options.

This game does have some nice playabiltiy. Basically, you're snowboarding (duh) down different courses (which you can choose too, spiffy). You can choose between what kind of snowboard you use, too. It has practice, tournament, and single race modes. You also get to perform many different tricks during a race, although it isn't stated whether or not this does anything for you in terms of a race. You do get points, though.

There are a few problems with this game, though. For one, it takes about 40k (including the two libraries needed). It is also a tad choppy in terms of animation. I don't know whether these have to do with the fact that it was programmed in C or not, but I'm guessing it could be. You do get to speed up the game to 130%, but it still is very choppy. It isn't choppy enough for you not to enjoy it though, as it is a nice game to play, with nice modes and different things that give it a gusto around it.

Review
Review by  Doug Kay
Reviewed on 2004-11-22
Attention span: 3/10 Only lasts 15 seconds.
Controls: 10/10 What you would expect.
Implementation: 4/10 EXTREMELY slow for 68k Assembly.
Overall: 5/10 Nice potential, but needs much work

When I downloaded this game, I expected it to be very much like Ski89 (which I reviewed) and instead of a skier you had a snowboarder. This is not the case however. I want to applaud Turbosoft for venturing into to a new class of race-and-avoid-the-walls type games. That new class is 3D. The game takes a third-person perspective of the snow boarder, with you viewing him from behind. The controls are simple enough; left/right to move and F1 to jump. The object of the game is to stay on the slope for as long as you can without hitting the walls.

By now, some of you may be getting the idea that this game might be pretty good. Do not think that; this game is still in very early beta. Although this game is good in theory, the author has yet to show us how it can be good in reality. Let me explain.

First off I will mention the graphics. They are pretty bad. The snowboarder is nothing more than a blob sitting on top of a rectangle. Sometimes his arms peek out of his body to tell you that it is in fact a person. Other than the snowboarder, the only other eye-candy are lines that depict the boundaries of the slope and some mountains in the background (which are just triangles formed by two straight lines).

Secondly, I will discuss the speed; it is painfully slow, especially for a 68k assembly game. In fact, I would not be particularly surprised if this game, for now at least, could be written in BASIC. The program redraws the entire screen over and over again with each move down the slope . Therefore it runs frame...by frame...by frame, and gets quite monotonous after a while.

I understand that this game is still in beta, but the improvements needed are vast. I touched on the two main ones; graphics and speed. Both need a facelift. I would wait until the full version came out and download that. Besides, this version is only playable for about 15 seconds. Hopefully this game will be greatly improved, and start a whole new class of 3D based games. I see the great potential that this game has, and I give my good luck to the author in making it a classic.

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