A mixing of two genres that almost works,
Sufficed to say, Mt. Garrett is a huge mountain that has plenty of places and elements that make up a good action/sports game hybrid. With over six different parts to the mountain, you’ll find that there is plenty of challenging goals that will await you at every turn. Probably the most difficult challenge that you’ll find is with the way that the game handles throughout your quest to find bomb pieces that will allow you to take out the military presence on the mountain. Once you’ve acquired enough pieces, and earned enough money throughout the game to open up other equipment possibilities, you’ll find that your journey is made just a little easier and a little more stylish with each passing acquisition!
Multiplayer options are also available to those who are looking to play through the game with a friend, but they are limited to simple events such as racing and trick styling. Once you’ve played through those few events, you’ll find that the game really doesn’t offer that many draws for the gamer, and there really isn’t a need for the multiplayer other than to fill up some disc space! Aside from all of these little options, needless or not, you can play through the game up to five times in order to complete the game with all of the available characters after you’ve defeated the game once. However, this little extra really isn’t necessary simply because the game doesn’t change the way that the goals are set out, and you’re not allowed to change out your characters outfits and boards once you’ve reached that point.
All in all, the game play here is impressive enough with the goal and mission system, but tends to fall flat on the replaying value. When you’ve played through the game once, you’ve found all of the game play options that you’re going to find, and there really isn’t much sense in playing it again unless you have nothing else to play! Control is probably one of the biggest downfalls that the game has to offer, and that is because the use of the analog sticks is nearly impossible to work with if you’ve never played a game of this type.
The tricks are generally easy to pull off once you’ve learned what all of the buttons do, but you’ll find that if you’re just slightly too slow with the way that you’re releasing your jump button, you’ll wipe out quicker than you can blink! Different tricks and how you perform them is easily explained through the games multiple missions, but you’ll find that even once you have these down to a science, the fact that you need to hold a button and then input a button combination in order to perform a special trick borders on ridiculous.
This challenge with the control is just something that you can’t really sink your teeth into, and if you’re looking to get the best equipment early on in the game, you really need to have a good idea on how to use the control interface and get yourself through the game. Veterans to games such as SSX shouldn’t have too much of a problem learning all of the inconsistencies with Dark Summit, but beginners and rookies to these slopes will have nothing but a hard time and in the end, a very frustrating ride!