Rippin' Riders

"Good Try, But no cigar!"

While Rippin Riders is a huge leap forward for the snow board genre graphically, It was an even larger leap backwards in the gameplay and control areas.

The levels were beautifully rendered, with great powder effects, wonderfull backgrounds, and huge imaginative levels {Especially the Extra super pipe!}. In this respect I had to take second, and just awe at the supurb wonders that UEP Systems had slipped into the newest cool boarders game {Yes, I still think of UEP when I turn on Cool Boarders 4. who doesn't muse at that silly sound byte 'UEP systems' ha!}.

The sound is nothing new. Not terrible, yet not all that exciting, just the same korny beach-bummish tack-ons, 'go for it', 'No Way!', ect.

Now it's in the handling where things really start to go buggy. First there's the trick system, we're thrown back to the old Charge-Your-Jump-by- holding-a-button system, giving you almost no control of your destination while you prepare for a trick. Which leads me to the tricks, like I said before, you charge your jumps. so you must hold a button and a direction before the jump to do a flip of any sorts, which landing is basically 90% luck. Then the point system for said tricks is unbelievably sad. A Melancholy, which ranks as one of the hardest basic tricks, scores only a pathetic 250pts, while the simple tail grab gains you 150pts, making extreme tricks hardly whorth the time and effort of trying.

Now, replay value. While, multi-player gives you a bit of a thrill, heading down the hill against a friend or loved one, the single player modes come up a bit short. With a very limited selection of players, levels, and boards. This one grew old almost immediately.

Finally, though I obviously tanked on this one, I have high hopes for future prospects. Hopefully Uep will take another look at the great Cool boarders series and add to that, instead of another leap into the past. Maybe, return the grinds and power bars. and whole wopping of secrets. and give us the tournaments back. I definitely gives this one the pass by, unless you have the chance to rent it, a couple of days should fill ou of this one. All around this gets a 4 for good effort.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/99, Updated 12/05/99