To create MTV Sports: Snowboarding, Radical Entertainment used an improved version of its X Games Pro Boarder engine, which, in case you missed it, was a great snowboarding game published by Electronic Arts last year. If you were a fan of X Games Pro Boarder, then you'll definitely like MTV Sports: Snowboarding since it's really the "unofficial" sequel.
What made X Games Pro Boarder such a great game is also what makes this game great - the easy and intuitive control, along with incredibly spacious courses that really let you explore the mountain. The typical boundaries that restrict you to a narrow run, found in other snowboarding games, are all but absent on most courses. And even when you do come across them you can usually simply jump over them. The game has six boarders to choose from, each with his own style, strengths, and weaknesses. The boarders aren't terribly different from one another, but if you have one area that you prefer (speed, maneuverability, and so on), the differences do help. You can also choose from a variety of boards from real manufactures like K2, Libtech, and Forum.
The game features five game modes - qualifying, challenge, create-a-park, head-to-head, and training - to get you used to the controls. The qualifying mode is where you start out and where you must rack up enough points on three levels to enter the challenge mode. Once you have enough points, you can compete against other boarders and enter the challenge mode, where you race for time against other boarders, as well as perform for points in trick events. Whoever has the best combined times and/or higher trick points moves on. The create-a-park feature lets you create your own course. This feature offers limited options, but it's still kind of cool to set up a monster-jump course to try out. The head-to-head mode pits you against a human opponent in a point contest or a timed race.At the game's outset, there are four regions to choose from: the US, Japan, Norway, and New Zealand. Each region is broken up into various events: mountain X, big air contest, half-pipe, and slopestyle. Completing the challenge mode will open up more hidden levels and events.
The responsiveness and overall control setup of the game are elegantly simple and easy for beginners to get used to. Once you get used to the basic controls, you can attempt more-advanced trick combinations and maneuvers just as you would in real-life snowboarding. There are tons of different combinations of tricks, grabs, and aerial maneuvers that you'll learn to perform with time and practice.
Visually, MTV Sports: Snowboarding is pretty good. Each boarder has a distinct look. The boarders move and sway as they cut down the mountain and perform all their tricks realistically. Ad banners, camera towers, trees, advisory signs, patches of earth, as well as jumps, half-pipe areas, and rails can be seen and used on the courses. The backgrounds and mountains far off in the distance look extremely good as well.
The soundtrack for MTV Sports: Snowboarding features real music like Blink 182's "Don't Leave Me Alone" and "Wendy Clear," Face to Face's "Disconnected," Fear Factory's remake of "Cars," and Ministry's "Jesus Built My Hotrod," to name a few. Needless to say, this collection of music makes for one of the best soundtracks for a PlayStation game ever. The sound effects for falling, riding over rocks, and cutting hard on the snow are also pretty good.
In the end, the free-roaming unrestricted feeling you get when you play MTV Sports: Snowboarding, combined with the great control setup, make it so much fun - and, ultimately, more of a snowboarding game than any other title out there. If you're a fan of snowboarding games and love to catch big air and see just how many times you can spin and flip while executing a bunch of different grabs before the ground comes rushing up, this is the game for you.
