Jonny Moseley Mad Trix

"Not SSX, But a Competent Winter Sports Title Nonetheless"

When people think of winter sports, snowboarding automatically pops into one's mind. Jonny Moseley, however is trying to make Skiing more synonymous with the genre. When you pick up the DVD case, you see three big letters in the bottom that would strike fear in the heart of any gamer, 3DO. Yes, that is the company that pumps out thousands of Army Men games a month, but those folks may have finally found their bag, just as long as they make a conscious effort to improve with the next game.

Graphics- 6

The graphics in JMMT are bare bones compared to competitors such as SSX and Cool Boarders. As soon as I started the training run, I immediately had flashbacks to N64's 1080 Snowboarding. The early runs in Slopestyle mode are very desolate, and are in need of detail. The later runs of slopestyle, however, are detailed with enough flashing lights to make an epileptic out of anyone. The environments in the Big Mountain mode, however, are beautiful and scenic, and are the best visuals in the game. The snow effects, especially through powder, are really nice, and the camera is very accurate in keeping the action in frame.

Sound- 5

The sounds of Jonny M. are the biggest tripping point of the game. The sound effects of sliding down the hill, and the fireworks, are nice, but very simplistic, and overdone. The Skiiers provide no voice work, save for two statements chosen randomly when they are chosen on the character selection screen. The music is standard fare for an Extreme Sport game, but there are so few of them, and many of them are shorter than an average run, especially in Big Mountain mode. Additionally, there is at least a ten second pause between each music track, leading to what seems to be a sonically boring moment. The worst part of the sound, however is the Announcer. He is obviously programmed to say different phrases during certain events, which breaks up the fluidity of his speech. A heavenly occurrence happens every so often, however, as a bug causes the constipated-robot voiced narrator to skip out.

Controls- 8

The control layout is similar to most skiing/snowboarding games in the past. It's a comfortable layout, placing basic actions on the Circle, Square, Triangle, and X buttons, grabs on the shoulder buttons, and flips on the D-pad. The use of a tweak button is nice, and makes it easy to rack up higher scores. Although it's uninspired, the layout works nicely.

Gameplay- 7

The early runs of the game are desolate, and scoring areas are spread out too far. It almost seems easier to complete the harder levels of the game, as the difficulty balance needs a bit of adjustment to make the early levels easier and the later levels harder. The Big Mountain mode is the highlight of the game, however, as it take a bit of creativity, as all scoring opportunities come from nature. The biggest falling point, however, is the lack of multiplayer, which is inexcusable by todays standards.

Even though it has some flaws, Jonny Moseley is a good example of a game that is more than a sum of it's parts.

Final Score(Not an average)- 7

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/12/02, Updated 09/12/02