Snowboard Xtreme Review - Screenshot 1 of 2

Sometimes a game company develops a game that doesn’t turn out to be nearly as well received as they expect it to be. After that, the very same game company will sometimes take that sorry excuse for a game, change the theme, fix the controls, re-skin it to look like something different, and then release it as an entirely new game. Then, and this part usually only happens in Twilight Zone-esque universes, they take that second game an re-skin it into a third “new” game and release it to the same public just weeks after the previous game was released. That is how you get a title like Snowboard Xtreme.

If you’ve played either Crazy Hunter or Zombie Skape, or if you’ve had the misfortune of playing both, then Snowboard Xtreme will feel like strange déjà vu. This is literally just another re-skin in what appears to be a completely disjointed series of games all based on the same engine. As far as plot goes, the games have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but they all play exactly the same.

In Snowboard Xtreme, you control a snowboarder located at the bottom of your DSi’s bottom screen, with the playing field extending vertically through the top screen. You can move left or right using the D-Pad, and almost any other button will cause your character to jump. The controls are incredibly simple, but they’re also tight and responsive enough to get the job done. That’s about as impressive as this game gets.

Snowboard Xtreme Review - Screenshot 2 of 2

As you make your way down the mountain you have to navigate around obstacles such as trees, logs, and large rocks, all of which will slow you down if you happen to run into them. There is no health meter in this game, but instead you are working against the clock. Run out of time before reaching the finish line and it’s game over. Conversely to running into objects, correctly navigating around flags on the slope will add time to your clock. If you happen to finish the entire game, which is an incredibly short four stages, also known as étapes, then you get to enter your initials into the local leaderboard. Finishing all four stages will also unlock Xtreme mode, which is exactly the same as the normal mode, but with more obstacles to run into and four additional stages, bringing you to a grand total of eight étapes.

Like the two games before it, Snowboard Xtreme is not a bad looking game, but most of the settings look exactly the same. There isn’t a whole lot of originality put into the environments or objects, but then again it’s just trees, rocks, and snow, so there isn’t really room to get into too much detail. The soundtrack consists of one song looped throughout the menu and all of the levels, but playing on mute is always an option as well.

Conclusion

Snowboard Xtreme is a lot like cotton candy. It serves its purpose, but it has absolutely no substance and will have you feeling nothing but regret once it’s through. This game is literally just a re-skin of a previously released game, and almost nothing changed in the process. It still functions as it’s supposed to, but the short length and unoriginal gameplay makes it difficult to recommend. As far as lazy rehashes go, this one is at the absolute top of the list.