User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest. Sign up Log in. Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs.
Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. A constant with all of the racers is that they all have a damage meter.
For example, when you smack against a rock wall or don't land right, your board sustains "damage. Choose your board wisely, too. Certain boards are better at downhill action than they are at stunts. There are eight authentic Lamar boards to choose from, some that are essentially the same board just at a different length. Like the players, each board has its own attributes, except each includes Acceleration, Control and Stability, among others.
There really isn't much wrong with Snowboarding. The overall graphics are the best on the system, and all the problems I have with the cart are minor. Note that it takes a LONG time to master the controls--and you'll have to master them if you expect to beat the game. Maybe it's just me, but the game's Expert Mode leaves little room to screw up.
Another minor problem is the hit detection. Once in a while I'd come close to a rock and still hit it even though I didn't seem to be that close. This seems like nitpicking, but when you're trying to win a race, every little mistake can count toward your possible loss. Also, don't expect much from the 2P Mode--it could better. Still, as you can see, these problems don't affect my score all that much.
And yes, there are plenty of good points. The graphics are magnificent. When you're coming over a ridge and the sun pops up, causing lens flare just as powdery snow blows in front of the camera--it's just awesome! When you take the graphics and put them with the incredible sounds and Rumble Pak support, it seems like you're actually on the slopes rocks! The graphics are beautiful, and the control is almost perfect, but with only six courses total and a select few secrets to open up, you'll be begging for more after just a few days of play.
Still, the Two-player Mode is fun, and what IS here is awesome. If only it was bigger The game has solid graphics, intuitive controls and lots of variety. But a little more variety would've helped. The half-pipe is the only event I really loved; doing tricks is the best part of the game.
I would've liked to have seen multiplayer races that required tricks. A Four-player Mode would've been nice as well. Otherwise, it's not bad. While 's cosmetic appeal is obvious, it's not until you realize some of the subtleties of the gameplay that this truly proves itself.
The controls are virtually flawless--while the boards are hard to control at first, the game makes you feel rewarded when you master stunts. Couple this with the incredible way the Rumble Pak conveys the different textures and you realize just how good Nintendo is at creating an overall experience.
One of Nintendo's two surprise games at Space World the other being NBA Basketball , Snowboarding shocked everyone with its amazingly rich graphical detail, smooth control and overall polish that only an EAD game could provide. Developed by the same team that brought us Wave Race 64 , Snowboarding is one of several snowboarding games on the way to the N64 in the coming months.
So far it seems to be the best one. There were three tracks to choose from at the show there are supposed to be at least six in the final version , and three different boarders to race as, as well as you guessed it three different snowboards to race with.
The most amazing part of , though, is the graphics. Everything looks incredibly realistic, from the path your board leaves in the snow to the photorealistic scenery in and around each track. And control with the N64's analog Control Stick makes everything move smooth as silk. It truly looks awesome. Regular readers will probably have realised that I don't have much time for snowboarders. This is probably down to my antipathy towards posers in general who spend a great deal of time, money and effort to show off about something that is essentially pointless.
That and the fact that, no matter what designer label they might have on them, anoraks are for trainspotters. Any snowboarders out there will probably have it in for me now, but since the worst they can do is try to dazzle me with their luminous nylon trousers or blow marijuana smoke into my face I'm not desperately worried. After saying that, it'll probably come as quite a surprise that I'm now vaguely considering a bit of a foreign trip to somewhere with mountains, snow and a place to hire silly woollen hats, though one junior accounts clerk from Telford trying to talk like a Californian surfer and I'll be on the first flight back.
The reason for this slight softening of my attitudes? The Wave Race connection should give you an idea of what to expect. If you're hoping for dozens and dozens of different courses, then you're going to be sadly disappointed.
What it does offer is, like Wave Race, probably the most realistic simulation of the real sport you're likely to get without blowing a month's wages on a pair of uncomfortable sunglasses. Once again, Nintendo's decision to whack an analogue joystick on the N64's controller has proven to be the best idea in videogames since the invention of the fire button.
A great deal of time has been spent to give the boarders a realistic sense of balance. Turning your boarder isn't just a matter of pushing the stick left or right and watching them change direction. Instead, the analogue stick is used to alter their stance and centre of gravity, which gives you absolutely precise control. When you're hurtling down the slopes at anything up to kph, whatever that might be in real money divide by eight, multiply by five, don't hit tree — doh!
A slight lean forward or back is enough to keep you on the right track most of the time, but if something more radical is needed, the further you push the stick the more your boarder leans over.
Push it right to the limit and your boarder will start 'edging' the board, which is nothing to do with lawns but instead runs the board on its side rather than its flat base. Very sharp turns are possible this way, at the cost of a lot of your hard-earned speed. Holding the Z trigger makes your racer crouch down, increasing speed but making it harder to steer. Knowing when to go flat-out and when to rein it back a little in order to avoid doing a Sonny Bono is vital.
You also need to learn how the different types of surface affect your board. Bottle ice obviously offers the least friction, but it also makes it very hard to steer. On the other hand, waist-deep drifts of powdery snow slow you down a lot, which at times can be useful if you need to cut your speed in a hurry without making any risky manoeuvres. This variation in the surfaces of the courses provides scope for something previously thought impossible - making the Rumble Pak an aid to gameplay instead of an annoying gimmick.
Since one patch of snow looks pretty much like another, this can be a great help in finding the fastest route down the course until you get familiar with it. If straightforward racing isn't your thing, but instead you prefer to show off to everyone just how cool you are, there is also the option to perform tricks.
The more impressive your midair stunts, the more points you score. The Trick Attack game can be played on the normal courses, making use of those halfpipes and ramps that only seemed to be there for decoration, but there are also two courses specially designed for showing off. Most of the tricks, such as the depressing 'melancholy' and the dodgy-sounding 'stiffy', are performed by simply hitting B and a direction while you're in the air, but the impressive spins from which the game takes its name require some stick gymnastics.
R and an anticlockwise spin on the stick, followed by the same plus B, then again with Z as well. That's three complete circles and three button pushes in the correct order, and after all that you've still got to make a perfect landing as well or you don't score any points! Personally, I didn't find this aspect of the game all that gripping, but then I wasn't a big fan of all the stuntery in Wave Race either. As well as the Trick Attack games, other options on offer include the Contest game, which turns the tracks into slalom courses where you have to wend your way between flags missing a flag costs you valuable seconds , a training track where you can practice jumps or the halfpipe, and of course the two-player game.
This manages to be almost as fast as the one-player game, although the amount of detail suffers. Trees are felled, some of the trackside fripperies like spectators do a runner and the fog has wafted in from Mount Turok.
Despite this, the head-to-head game still keeps the superb control over the boarders that makes the one-player game so much fun. It's a pity there isn't a four-player game - Snowboard Kids managed it - but having to work out the physics of four people moving around at once would probably have been a tall order even for the N It's not perfect, unfortunately. For a start, the snowboarders are idiots. Well, I didn't want to say it, but What I mean is that the computer-controlled players, while perfectly capable of making their way from the top to the bottom of the course and giving you a good run for your money as they go, have absolutely zero common sense.
It's as if they don't even realise that there's somebody racing them. If you're running neck and neck, there's a very good chance that they'll plough into you and knock you down - not out of malice although the addition of a 'brutal elbow to the windpipe' button would have been highly amusing , but simply because you're on the path they've decided to take. Worse still, once they've knocked you down, usually going over themselves, they're still intent on following the same line, so as soon as you're back on your feet they ram you again.
All the time this is happening, your damage meter is rising! You can get off to a great start, power down the slope without a hitch while hearing your computer-controlled opponent slam repeatedly into trees, rocks and buildings, glance at the course map about three-quarters of the way down to see a gap wide enough to fit a couple of glaciers between your and your adversary Son of a This happened often enough, on different tracks, to make me realise that it's quite deliberate and not just my boarder taking a bad line.
Frankly, it pissed me off. Even though it seemed to happen in reverse as well, with the N64's boarder all but stopping and waiting for me to catch up if I was doing particularly badly, I'd rather the game played things completely straight instead of messing around just to keep the two racers within sight of each other.
If I'm losing badly, let me lose - I'll learn from it and do better next time. If I'm winning by a mile, don't magically strap a Sidewinder missile onto my rival's board to keep up the challenge in the final stages. What's the point of struggling to beat the computer if it's just going to cheat to keep up?
However, it does have the faults mentioned above, and I'm also dubious about its longevity. All but one track was opened up within a few hours of play, and it was only sheer frustration with the computer-controlled boarders' dodgy tactics that kept me from keeping on trying to reach the final course. Catch some air, duuuuude! That's assuming you didn't buy the Australian version three months ago, of course.
Thanks to the Nintendo controller, io8ovs Japanese incarnation was the best videogame simulation of snowboarding ever, and the UK version is just as good.
The feeling of control over your boarder has yet to be bettered by any other game. A few of the trackside details disappear to help keep the speed up, but it's a sacrifice worth making, as the multiplayer game is just as fast as the regular one. Since each course has a fairly chunky selection of alternate routes to the finish, there are plenty of opportunities to pull a fast one and leave your challenger eating yellow snow.
0コメント