Snow Wave: Avalanche

A pretty unfortunate title, given the recent spate of tragedies. The name Snow Wave Avalanche is more likely to invoke morbid thoughts of death, suffocation, and the random cruelty of massive natural disasters than a hankering for high-speed snow-surfin' hi-jinks. Which is a pity, because the game itself is actually pretty good.

Basically, this is almost identical to 1080 Snowboarding on the Nintendo 64: you pick a character from the selection of despicable teenage loons on offer, then slide quickly down a slope while balancing on a bit of wood. There are loads of stunts to pull off, some excellent 3D-accelerated visuals, and it even supports force feedback. It may not be quite as polished as the Nintendo game, but if you've got a decent joypad it's about as much fun.

The other interesting thing about Snow Wave Avalanche is the bizarre soundtrack, which features some weird Scandinavian-sounding band who resemble a poor man's Green Day, and includes the lines 'I would sell my mum and kill my dog for a little suck would change my name, tattoo my face, for one little f**k*, thereby rendering an otherwise harmless winter sports game potentially obscene. Ha! Not one for the kids, then.