Nintendo 64
Snowboard Kids
| Graphics: Sound: Gameplay: Overall: |
8.36 8.84 8.12 8.24 |
| Votes: | 25 |
| Reviews: | 1 |
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| Reviewer: ettercap | Date: Jul 2, 2011 |
| Snowboard Kids is exactly what you'd expect: Kids on snowboards. It is a racing game that came out around the same time as the other snowboarding games on the N64.
Graphics: 8 The game has enough stuff going on to be interesting, but not so much that you get distracted. The graphics match each stage beautifully, and very few are reused or out of place. The custom snowboard paints are all really nice. The biggest hit however is in some of the paths; its at times unclear as to what you should do or where to go. This doesn't include shortcuts which are intentionally hard to see. Sound: 7 Music is nice, early N64 quality. None is memorable though. Still, as you're playing it doesn't irritate or distract. A few really nice scores are there as well, but most are forgettable. Gameplay: 3 People throw around the phrase "The computer cheated!" far too often these days... However... The computer cheats. The NPC snowboarders will not attack each other, never use their special items on them, etc. They can increase in speed well beyond whats actually possible, and have an uncanny ability to avoid attacks thrown at them. It is impossible to get very far ahead, and the repeated unstoppable bursts of speed at the finish tends to give the computer the advantage. The NPCs are on a team against you more or less. They will always go after you, and will not intentionally attack each other at any point. Because there are many more of them, this can become quite irritating. They don't even try to win; they just try to stop you from winning, and they do that very well. There are three different varieties of snowboards which you can buy using money found in courses. A slow easy turning, a medicore balanced, and a fast hard turning board. Each can be upgraded to increase its strengths and decrease its weakness. Because of the problem with the NPCs however, only the fastest of the boards can win a lot of the time. Most of the time winning comes down to sheer luck. No matter how hard you try you can't ever get a meaningful lead. If you're in last place the NPCs will follow identical courses and none will attack the others. If you get in front of them, they attack you. This will be noticed quite rapidly. The game has random sorts of special powers, aggressive and effect ones. Some of these end up being useless. For instance, a Parachute sends the target into the air for quite a while. When you get hit by it, the NPCs will get ahead of you instantly. The Ice Block is the worst. It freezes the target; in most cases the target will be right in front of you and hitting the ice block makes you fall as well. You will notice that the enemies always seem to have the most useful items for the need at the moment. Finally, each lap is finished with a ski lift to return you to the top. However, only one character can go through at a time. That means if you come in fast, you will hit into the wall and fall over. Usually giving your opponents another huge benefit as you try to recover. They will also hit you with attacks here inexplicably often. A number of tricks can be used to make your characters gain temporary speed boosts and the like. These involve bizarre command chains, and again, the NPCs seem to pull this off perfectly. When you try, you're likely to crash on landing. And as I've stated, crashing means you lose almost inevitably. Overall: 3 In the end this is a really bad game, but the first two or three levels are fairly nice. The final course is a well of cheap unlike all others, as you have to beat an NPC exclusive to the course who plays by the normal NPC rules but is better than each and has a board faster than is possible. Don't expect to see turning difficulties, those are only for the PC. Random. Your ability to win in this game is subject to the whims of random, and everything hates you. The NPCs are flawless in most cases, and their teaming up is the focus of challenge. Sadly this means that the handful of really hard, long courses may need to be played... 20, 30+ times before you can win, requiring complete memorization and zero mistakes. It is, frankly, ridiculous. That other game, the 1080 one. That's a much better snowboarding one plus it has a panda. Somehow they made a sequel to this game and while less cheaty, it's also really bad. So there's really no reason to play these games unless you're a masochist. In that case, you need professional help. Anyone who could enjoy this game is quite clearly psychotic. |
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