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« on: November 28, 2003, 04:45:22 AM »
Well one of my most anticipated Gamecube games has finally arrived, 1080 Avalanche, I picked up my copy this morning.
I'll start with the visuals, bloody good is what they are there are some amazing snow effects in this game, the snow hits the screen and melts, it sticks to your clothes and hair and falls off when you collide with something, its a great touch. The snow sprays convincingly as you speed around a corner, you sink into it when it gets to deep, one of my fave moments was when I was speeding through the middle of to cliffs and a great snow storm started and visibility was low, blooming great. The characters them selves are modelled brilliantly, clothes and hair all move brilliantly against the raging winds, I dont know why but the clothes effects really impressed me. The lighting and shadow effect are also top notch, the most visually pleasing snowboarder I've played.
Now for the gameplay the controls themselves havent really been changed much from the original which is now bad thing attall. A button is jump, R button is spin/flip but you need to use the analogue also for this, Y button is grab as is B and X. To land safely you mus press in the L button before you land to soften the landing, you also use L to grind, for grinding it has a Tony Hawkes styled balance system that works well. To move faster you must hold down the L trigger. Turning is great and some skill is required to take some of the corners especially against the Avalanche (we'll get back to that later). The level design is great, various obsticles blocking your path, deer running into you, cars knocking you over. There are also some interactive stuff, collapsing bridges to get across, plates of ice to smash through to get to different routes etc, all are done extremely well.
The early levels on Novice and Hard are fairly easy to do but the levels are good fun, the expert levels are brilliant, I love them, they can be very tense indeed, I believe there are around 20 or so tracks to do, I've unlocked extreme mode but havent tried that yet.
Other than the noraml match mode in which you race one on one with a competitor there is also time trial in this mode you cans earch for gold coins, with these you can unlock various other snowboards for you to use. there is Gate challenge, pass through each gate to get more time but as you get further down the gates become harder to pass through. In trick attack you do various tracks and rack up points, you can use the half pipe and big air ramp in this mode.
Now for one of the most intense things Ive done on a videogame, the avalanche is brilliant fun, the camera shakes violently, boulders crash down infront of you all while the snow is snapping at your feet, if you fall behind the snow will cover you you'll get dragged further behind and then its really tense trying to escape it, you have a danger meter the more danger your in the higher it will get but if you get out of danger it will lower, it has to be experienced.
This is the best snowboarder I've played, while it can be easy at first it does become intense later on, this will keep me busy for a whilebecause the levels are so damn replayable, some people may claim its not to long but dont let that put you off its like most Nintendo games you can play it over and over, I'm glad I exchanged Mario Kart for this.
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