With all this hot weather I figured what better time to show off some winter sports games, in a feature I'm calling
snowboarding down the generations!I've always enjoyed snowboarding and skiing in videogames. I think it's the simplicity of the set up, just starting at the top of a mountain and heading down to the bottom, that really resonates with me. Even in the excitement of a race I can find it relaxing and therapeutic, but it's definitely the games that just put me-against-the-mountain with no other pressure that I can really lose myself in.
Snowboard Kids (N64) & 1080 Snowboarding (N64)The games that started things off! Snowboard Kids is a proper gem of an N64 game, a great kart racer in its own right with a downhill twist. Even my parents would play this with me and my brother, and it'd often be on for hours at a time as we tried to unlock Shinobin, the secret character behind the last winner's podium. Snowboard Kids was one of those strange N64 games that required a memory pak to save rather than saving to the cart, something I only associate with this game, Rayman 2 and Mystical Ninja. We had a memory pak but it never seemed to work with Snowboard Kids (or in fact Rayman and Mystical Ninja), so every time we played the game we were starting fresh. I've since learned that third party memory paks, like the one we had, were notoriously bad on the N64!
1080 Snowboarding was the lesser played of the two probably because it was aimed at an older audience, with a much more serious take on the sport. I still enjoyed it though and it's more the game that lined me up for my next generational foray into extreme sports with EA Big...
SSX3 (PS2) & SSX On Tour (PS2)SSX3 was and remains one of the all-time greats - not just one of my favourite snowboarding games, or sports games, but one of my favourite games full stop. With all of its events tied to a single mountain this was "open world" gaming just as open world gaming was becoming a thing, and it works brilliantly. With the option to free roam you can drop in at the top of the mountain and spend a full 30 minutes boarding down to the bottom without a single interruption, pulling insane tricks and reaching crazy speeds along the way. Add in a brilliant soundtrack and an in-game radio presenter to rival Fallout 3's Three Dog and this game came together in a way that has never been surpassed.
SSX On Tour was comparatively a disappointment, lacking that cohesiveness that really elevated SSX3's single mountain experience and feeling all in more shallow. What it did do, however, was mark the first appearance of skiing into my snowboarding game journey. That would become my preferred sport style as we jump two generations...
Steep (PS4)Ok, so this is decidedly not "retro" (although it
is half a decade old now), but this was the first game since SSX3 that looked to give me that same experience I was craving. Thankfully it did not disappoint! Steep was
my favourite game of 2016 and one of the few platinums I have earned on PS4. Like SSX3 Steep is open world, but where the former was just one mountain Steep is a whole alpine range (with more added as DLC). For a game I can just get lost in, finding my own fun in throwing myself down a mountain, Steep is one of the best.
Go Vacation (Switch) & Family Ski (Wii)Go Vacation is one of those surprise perfect fits to a person, a kind of videogame comfort food that I find myself returning to on a semi-regular basis just to unwind and forget my adult life worries. Split into four distinct resorts, my favourite by some margin is the snow resort which - surprise surprise - lets you free roam snowboard and skii down a mountain. While again a Switch game might not seem very retro, unlike Steep this
is an enhanced port of a Wii game (published by Nintendo, it might actually be their first wii port, coming out at a time when they were still working through their wiiu library?). Having come to Go Vacation on the Switch I then looked up its origins and found it to be the third game in a broad lineage that started with Family Ski on the Wii (titled We Ski in the US). When I then happened upon Family Ski while browsing a game store for the princely sum of £5 I had to then buy it! I've actually yet to play it (it has the honour of being the first third-party game to use the balance board, a peripheral I also don't own!) but intend to try it out when I have my wii set back up. I'd also quite like to pick up the sequel, We Ski & Snowboard, if I ever happen across it!
With that we reach the bottom of my proverbial snow-covered mountain of a post. While those aren't the only games to feature snowboarding that I own (who can forget Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild!) they sum up my relationship with the sport in videogame form. Would I want to snowboard in real life instead and enjoy the thrill of tumbling down a mountain first hand, rather then vicariously through a videogame? Probably not, I'm too frightened I'd at best break a leg and I'm certain I'd be no good at it. That though is the power of videogames, and why it remains my favourite medium when I want to cool off and unwind.