The Arctic Challenge Snowboarding Review

With other superior snowboarding games on the mobile market, it's unclear why anyone would want to play this mess.

In The Arctic Challenge Snowboarding, you play as snowboarding champion Gretchen Bleiler, Travis Rice, or Andy Finch (who is unlockable) before each achieved the mega-snow-stardom of today. You start the game as a rookie with no sponsorship. It's your job to orchestrate your character's rise to the top by beating out other riders over three progressively difficult courses. This fine premise is ruined by poor execution. The Arctic Challenge is rendered almost unplayable by its broken frame rate, which is about four to seven frames per second on the Motorola V600...and sometimes even less. The control is equally jerky and is arguably the more crippling problem, however, and as a result, The Arctic Challenge Snowboarding simply feels broken and unfinished.

Even while playing the game, you'll only be seeing screenshots: about four to seven per second.
Even while playing the game, you'll only be seeing screenshots: about four to seven per second.

In the game, you'll guide your rider over several kinds of obstacles, each of which provides you with a trick opportunity. For example, you can use cars embedded in the snow either for grind tricks or jump tricks. There's quite a good variety of both, although spins are difficult to land because of inadequate control. You'll often end up over-rotating and landing at a bad angle.

There are several types of power-ups that improve your score. You can collect fish for quick point bonuses, or you can score multipliers to increase the number of points you net with your next trick. These are often located directly before a big jump. Additionally, camera and video camera icons are sometimes located in midair; they represent spots at which stationary photographers can take promo pictures of you, which do nothing but improve your score.

Once you unlock the two initially unavailable levels, the Burton US Open and the Burton Nippon Open, you'll be able to play these anytime you choose in wild card mode. This game type is designed for casual shredding. The wild card courses are slightly different in their layouts, and the scores you achieve on them are compiled on a separate list. Unfortunately, the game still runs horribly in this mode, so it's therefore a chore to play.

The Arctic Challenge's visuals would be perfectly serviceable, if only they ran at a decent rate. Instead, this is one of the slowest-running games since the advent of Java downloadable apps services. The game's sound is much too limited, but at least it functions. Although you'll hear a ditty upon opening the game, there's no background music. However, you will hear a noise every time you pick up an object or wipe out.

It's tough to land tricks when you're working with such jerky controls.
It's tough to land tricks when you're working with such jerky controls.

The Arctic Challenge Snowboarding simply runs much too poorly to be of any enjoyment. There's absolutely no reason why the game should be so broken on this midrange handset. With other superior snowboarding games on the mobile market, it's unclear why anyone would want to play this mess.

The Good

  • Decent graphics, although they hardly move
  • Three riders to play and three courses to shred

The Bad

  • Horrible frame rate
  • Unresponsive control
  • Limited audio

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