ESPN X-Games Snowboarder Hands-On

Tucked away in a small corner of Konami's booth was ESPN X-Games Snowboarder. I honestly don't know why Konami wasn't making a bigger deal of this game, because it's pretty cool. It plays a lot like just about every other snowboarding game - use the control stick to move yourself left and right, hold down and release the A button to jump. The longer you hold down the jump button and the faster you're going the higher you'll jump. Once you get in the air every one of the face buttons does a corresponding grab, while holding the analog stick rotates you.

What was nice, though, was the points system. Unlike other games that simply do or do not give you points depending on how you land, X-Games Snowboarder judges your trick, your landing, and your execution and awards you points depending on how well it think you did. So, if you do a backside 1080 and land sideways and then bail, you'll get almost half the points you'd get if you had landed it properly. This is a nice feature because it awards you for at least trying difficult tricks, and insures that you won't ever finish with a zero score.

The graphics are still as nice as ever. Just like an actual snowboarder your character wears loose clothing, and the faster you go the more it flaps about. This effect is simply awesome, as you actually get a great feel of realism. Once you finish your run you're treated to a small victory animation from your boarder, then you get to watch a replay of your performance. It's in the replay that you notice the real-time snow-trail that actually gets left in the snow. Slide up a slope and jump off and you'll see your trail when you land. It's a really small effect that makes a really big impression.

Still, for a snowboarding game I never felt that I was traveling all that fast. I definitely think the game needs to be sped up, as sometimes I couldn't even make it up a small embankment. Still, the game definitely deserves some attention, and I can't wait to play more of it.