"An awesome sequel to a great game"

Storyline: *N/A*

There’s not much in the way of storyline. Unless you count the back ground stories of all the characters. 3 returning characters, and 2 new characters. The three vets have grown up, and two have a possible thing going on. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t build on this. We get this from the bios. So, um, yeah, no story in the game, but some story out of the game.

Game play: 9/10

The game play is tight. Depending on your boarder, you’ll have different strengths and weaknesses, and the game sticks to those. The controls are pretty nifty also. Easy as all hell to pull off tricks, nice response in turns *again, depending on your character*, collision is nice *no just stopping. If you hit something, your character reacts. Though not always realistically. You shouldn’t survive a face plant from 3 stories, but you do*. The races are fun, but can get difficult. Early races are a breeze once you pick your favorite racer and learn the slopes. Even expert can be easy. However, once you get to extreme, you’re in for some very tough races. Trick attack is annoying *damnit, combos are freaking hard*. Gate challenge is decent enough, but like trick attack, can get annoying quickly. Time challenge is sweet. It allows a player to learn the course easily enough, but the coins are sometimes hard to find.

All in all, the game play is top notch.

Graphics: 10/10

*drools*

Alright. I was skeptical with the cube to begin with. Small disks, small console. No contender next to the PS2 or Box right?

Dead F’ing wrong.

This game makes me drool with some of the stages *fourth stage in hard and second in expert. Sighs*

The sense of speed, collision, everything. This game is down right beautiful. Easily my favorite game on the cube right now. Had I known this game was coming out before hand, this would have been the reason I got the cube. As it stands, I got it for the free Zelda game. But I digress.

This game is beautiful, and well worth the money, just for the graphics *the tight game play helps*

Difficulty: 9/10

Easy to extreme. Extreme is hard, easy is easy. Doesn’t get simpler than that. However, taken all together, the game is slightly on the hard side. Trick attack and gate challenge will make you pull your hair out, and the time trial coins can get tricky. Extreme mode is damaging. But it’s all fun.

Sound: 10/10

If you like rock and some mellow tunes, this game is for you. I hate rap, and I’m glad to see few to none *haven’t heard all the songs yet* in this game.

The opening video and the song Choke are just sweet. *BTW, Choke is just nice. Buy it, download it, just get the damn thing now*

You also get to hear some very nice natural sounds. The avalanches and the wildlife really add some realism to the game.

Replay Value: 6/10

This is where the game drops. If you have everything in the game *thus truly beating it* there’s not a lot left to do. And for the most part, there’s no reason to keep playing. And I’ve heard of people beating it in three days. Not much to go back and do. It’s like an RPG. Once you beat it *gotten most everything* why continue to play? Erase your data and start over. But that’s not really replay. Create a boarder would have been nice, or create a slope, or create an avalanche. That would have been nice. But no, no such luck.

Over all? My calculator says 8.8. But if you can get over the poor replay *I have* This game is easily a 9.5. It gets hard, but the graphics and game play will bring you back, as will the nifty sounds.

Rent or Buy? I would say buy, if you like racers and snowboarding games. Rent it if you’re new to the snowboarding genre, otherwise, there are a lot worse games out there for you to waste you money on.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/12/03