Rating: Average 1080 (Ten-Eighty) Degrees Snowboarding had potential to be a great racing game, but instead it is nothing more than a disappointment. First of all, the game isn't going to win any awards for originality. The tricks are a poor imitation of the PlayStation's Cool Boarders series, and the racing itself is basically WaveRace on snow. The result is a game that can't decide whether it's a rip-off of Cool Boarders or of WaveRace. What really kills this game are some major gameplay flaws. Hitting the landing on tricks is often frustrating, and when you fall on your butt it seems to be based more on the pre-programmed skills of your boarder than it is on whether you really messed up or not. The racing itself is also frustrating. The gameplay is very unbalanced in that one tiny mistake could (and usually does) turn a record-setting time into a last-place disaster. That's not challenging gameplay, that's poor design. The graphics are very solid, but they are nothing that will make you drop your jaw in amazement. The hip-hop music, much like the rest of the game, tries hard to be "cool," but ends up being obnoxious and annoying. I definitely don't recommend buying 1080 Degrees Snowboarding, and even those just looking for a fun weekend rental and nothing more would be much better off renting Gran Turismo.
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