Twisted Edge Extreme Snowboarding

If your snowboard has a twisted edge, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Radical dude! Blastin'! Heavy-duty slammln' man! Way to lose it, loser! Er, sorry, but play Twisted Edge Snowboarding for too long and you too will find yourself slipping into the puffa jacket vernacular.

Twisted Edge Snowboarding has been thought of as a potential 1080° beater, and now it's finally arrived. Graphically, it does look a lot nicer than io8o°, although it suffers from some rather bad clipping if your boarders get too close to the edge of the tracks.

Initially you get to choose from four different boarders and four different boards. Each time you complete a stage in the competition mode another boarder and a new board becomes available. You have a rather limited choice of courses to begin with, as these are opened up by playing through the various modes. Mind you, as in 1080°, there are only a few tracks in total anyway. Twisted Edge offers just six competition tracks and one half-pipe. Where it pips 1080° at the post is on the courses themselves. In 1080°, as you moved up through the difficulty levels you simply played the same tracks again. In Twisted Edge, although you play the same tracks again, they each get longer, and features on the tracks change. More alternative routes open up on each track, allowing you more choice as to which way you go. In addition, more hazards are added as you get better at the game, such as the tunnel on one of the tracks which is fairly nondescript the first time that you play it, but has icicles dropping from the roof the second time around.

Duuuude!

The very first thing that becomes apparent about Twisted Edge when you first turn it on though is that it's rather lethargic. That is to say, it takes quite a while to get going. Despite the fact that the boarders start the course by dropping from parallel poles, they don't seem to pick up speed very fast.

At first it almost seems like you're missing something - like you're using the wrong button for accelerate or something - but then you notice that the CPU players have the same problem. It takes some time before characters can reach their full speed and even then they don't seem to be moving very rapidly, certainly nothing like as fast as the characters in 1080°, despite the fact that the speedo at the bottom of the screen announces a speed of upwards of 50 mph.

This is because there is no speed control as such in Twisted Edge Snowboarding. If you crash on a fairly flat area of the course, it takes absolutely ages to get going again, and you can pretty much guarantee that any chance of getting a good position has been lost.

Maaaan!

Generally Twisted Edge is a lot more forgiving than 1080°. The boarders can happily slam their boards against the walls and the barriers and - providing you're tilting your board a little at the time - don't crash. However, this has almost been overdone because in some places it's possible to actually pass whole parts of your character's body -head or arms for example - right through a rock outcropping or metal barrier and keep going.

Stunts in Twisted Edge are a lot easier to accomplish than in 1080° too, although at times too easy! It can be quite annoying when you're trying to take the lead in a downhill race only to have your boarder suddenly perform multiple mid-air backflips because you inadvertently touched a C button.

Two-player mode is well implemented and doesn't seem to suffer any slowdown, and the viewing distance is pretty good. However, the generally slower pace of Twisted Edge Snowboarding just makes it much less exciting than 1080°. Maybe if 1080° hadn't come out first... but even then, the boarders in this game would seem slow. Maybe the speed of the characters in Twisted Edge Snowboarding is really quite realistic. Maybe that's the speed that people really travel down mountains in real life. But what it means in this case is that Twisted Edge Snowboarding just doesn't have the thrills of 1080° Snowboarding.

2nd rating opinion

1080° was a good game, but it had some problems. So what does Twisted Edge do? It adds more problems of its own! The boarders feel like robots, not people, and the painfully slow recovery from even the tiniest mishap quickly gets unbearable.

Just when you thought it was safe to assume no other snowboarding games were coming out, along comes Twisted Edge from Boss Games (the company behind Top Gear Rally) and publishing giant Midway. With 1080 Snowboarding already available, the obvious question is if Twisted Edge is better or at least as good as Nintendo's snowboarding extravaganza. Unfortunately it's too early to give a definitive answer, but judging from the version Midway recently sent, the game is certainly headed in the right direction.

With the number of snowboarding games already out for all of the systems, it's easy to create a product which seems unoriginal. So far, this is the case with Twisted Edge, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, we are talking about snowboarding, and the basic rules apply to most every snowboarding game out right now: slopes, obstacles, snow effects, gen x-looking characters, licensed clothing and snowboards and either a rock or techno/dance soundtrack. Yes, Twisted Edge has all of these things--and Boss does them quite well. In particular, the music is so good in some parts, you'll swear it's coming from a CD. In addition, the graphics are on the same level as 1080, except with more of a Top Gear Rally feel. This revision doesn't have a huge number of effects, but there are enough in there to notice.

As you might have guessed, each of the racers and snowboards have their own statistics. More racers open up after beating the intermediate difficulty level, with even more possibly opening up after beating the entire game. The same thing goes with the courses-after advancing in the game new courses open up, while others are simply extended or populated with obstacles in new locations. The Rumble Pak reacts differently depending on the type of terrain you're on as well. Multiplayer-wise, Twisted Edge doesn't break any new ground. At first, early press releases suggested some sort of Four-player Mode, but it looks as if Boss is going to stick with a traditional Two-player Split-screen Mode.

Outside of what makes Twisted Edge like every other snowboarding game on the market, there are a few features that stand out. First, the courses are decidedly wider than most other snowboarding games and seem to have a load of alternate paths. Another feature that will add to the "strategy" aspect are the tricks in the game. Unlike other snowboarding games, tricks in Twisted Edge actually speed up your racer. Think of successfully completing tricks as an ego-boost of sorts; therefore, you're more confident and go faster. There are quite a few tricks to perform--somewhere around 150 of them-so gaining speed shouldn't be a problem.

Midway's hitting the hill with Twisted Edge Snowboarding. As of press time, TES will contain seven tracks (including a practice track) and five competition modes. You'll be able to race each track through three difficulty levels, with the course changing as you advance: The Expert course will contain jumps that were closed off in the Novice course, and so on. You'll select from nine boarders and seven rides, some of which are released as you complete certain events; and you'll pull off numerous tricks, including the incredible 1260 and the McTwist 720--just to name a few.

The preview version we played was very early in development: It featured only one track and few tricks. However, the game speed was up to par with that of 1080°. As for the graphics, the characters looked smooth, and the environments featured cool touches, including downed alien spacecraft. Only time and another playable will tell if TES will bring enough twisted fun to cyber-shredders this winter.

With the recent success of snowboarding titles like Cool Boarders 3 and 1080 deg; Snowboarding, publishers are eagerly cashing in by releasing a blizzard of related games. Lacking glitz and name-brand recognition,Twisted Edge Extreme Snowboarding succeeds by focusing on simple gameplay and intuitive controls.

TEES offers players a selection of four unique characters and five styles of snowboards before thrusting them into a grueling four-man race. Challenging non-linear trails, including ice-encrusted caverns and rusty sewer pipes, will test both your skill and your reflexes.

Luckily,Twisted Edge features tight, responsive controls and an impressive array of tricks and stunts for players to perform: tail grabs, back flips, and the elusive "tuna salad." TEES also contains excellent Practice and Stunt modes, which let beginning boarders test their skills.

Graphically speaking, the game features large, colorfully animated boarders and stunning alpine vistas. Only occasional slowdown and excessive fog detract from the show. The unintrusive sound effects--mostly limited to crunching snow and whistling wind--also fare well. A repetitive soundtrack and an obnoxious slow-to-respond announcer, however, will test your patience.

Although 1080 deg; soil remains the definitive choice in video game snow-boarding.TEES's simple, addictive gameplay and huge array of stunts make it a must-try for serious snowboarding fans and a solid choice for non-boarders.

Midway launches the Nintendo 64 into the snowboarding realm with Twisted Edge Extreme Snowboarding. In the features lodge, Twisted Edge will include five play modes--Story, Competition, Stunt, Versus, and Practice--on six highly challenging tracks that will contain multiple paths and varying terrain (like swinging suspension bridges, ice caves, falling trees, and an underground frozen river). With split-screen two-player action and a techno soundtrack, Twisted Edge looks to deliver some twisted fun on the slopes in March.