Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was a huge success on the Game Boy Advance. So, obviously, the rest of the “Famous Person PRO Sport” games are making their way to the GBA. Like Hawk, Shaun Palmer’s Pro Snowboarder is a handheld version of the home version. Unlike Hawk, Palmer is not in 3D and executed nowhere nearly as well as Tony Hawk.

Graphically, Palmer looks ok. The game does animate smoothly. The backgrounds are rich and vibrant, but the characters all look like very drab. They’re just peach bodies with clothes on them, with no faces. This is due to the fact that the sprites aren’t very big. The problem with the graphics is that they make it almost impossible to judge depth. Once you’re in the air, you have no clue how far right or left you are on the track. This is amazingly annoying and makes the game really hard. The only thing you do have to guide you is your shadow.

Pro Snowboarder is also mediocre in the sound department. The music is decent and there are even some voice samples of people yelling at you because you’re a “punk kid.” But really, there is nothing special about the sound at all.

Controls are another issue altogether. Jumping is controlled with A while B controls breaks and grinds. R speeds you up and L does nothing. The turning is based on your border going forward. So pressing right turns him/her right and the same goes for left. It’s a bit hard to get used to this because your border doesn’t go forward. He goes from left to right in a side-scrolling manner. So pressing right moves him towards the bottom of the screen and left moves him up. To do tricks you jump and then press a direction on the D-pad followed by the A button. Unless I’m doing something wrong, there seems to be a very limited amount of tricks to do.

Gameplay is pretty basic. There are 3 modes. In freestyle you go down the mountain and do as many tricks as you can while completing certain “mission objectives.” It’s Tony Hawk on a snowboard, minus the insane depth of the Hawk series. Palmer X mode is a race mode where you try to be the first down a segment of the mountain. At first I thought this was insanely hard and near impossible because the other borders go so fast. Then I realized that if you hold R you go faster. After I figured this out, Palmer X became way to easy. There is also a nifty half pipe mode. This mode has problems though. Unless you let go of jump at the exact right time you end up balancing up on edge of the lip instead of jumping. You don’t get near as many points of holding on the lip. Plus, it kills your momentum. And you have precious little time to finish the half pipe. I always run out of time, and haven’t been able to finish it yet.

Palmer lacks almost any redeeming value at all. The goals are set too high for the GBA version. This game is suited better on the consoles. Unless you’re a real die-hard fan of the extreme sports genre or a really huge Palmer freak, you’d be much better off spending your hard-earned buck on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater for the GBA. The premise is the same, but the execution is nearly flawless in Hawk.