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Snowboard Kids: Reviews

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Game Score: 9/10

Somehow bored of Mario Kart 64? Wondering if there is another crazy action racing game to play? Well this might be the thing you're searching for...

Overall Score: 9.5/10

Woah, that's one high score for a random, non-franchise game. Well it's defenitly worth every single points of that score. Snowboard Kids is a battle racing game like Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing, except it have a lot of little twists that these two games don't have. The single player mode is a lot of fun and multiplayer is decent as well.

Gameplay&Control: 9/10

The single player mode is pretty cool. You choose your characters among five pre-teen kids (I pick Linda) who each have different stats: speed, stunt and turning. Then you pick a board, which have different stats as well, you can pick one to make up for the character's weak point or enhance the character's strenght, up to you. Then you're ready to choose your track and race against 3 others of the kids. Each track have a set number of laps, you race down while picking up coins that will allow you to gain items from boxes along the track, you need at least 100 coins to purchase an item (but each coin you pick up is 100$). There are two kinds of items, red ''offense items'': you aim these at opponents and it will hit them with a variety of effects such as freezing, turning them into snowmens (unable to stir their board) or exploding on them, the blast being able to hit more than one kid at once (don't get caught in your own bomb... it always happen to me -_-). Next are the blue ''defensive items'': For example, ghosts will seek the kid leading the race and slow him down for a few seconds, fans will lock on your board and give you a speed boost, panlids will hit all 3 other kids with unavoidable accurancy, unless they are holding the invisibility defense item, wich allow the user to avoid any weapons for a few seconds. Anyway... once you're done through a lap, you reach the lift. This is an interesting aspect of the game. When one of the racers hit the lift, he is allowed in and the lift become unavailable for a second, so if one kid was following very closely, he will smash into the fence and fall down for a few seconds, this might allow another kid to enter the lift meanwhile. This weird fight to be the first to enter the lift is pretty intense and fun since it can end up having a major impact on the race. Try to hit them before they can enter the lift and steal it from them (playing the lift part of the race wrong can easily send you from first to last place). Once the race is over... you will receive a copper, silver or gold trophy... or nothing... depending on your finishing rank. You will also receive a bundle of money wich will allow you to buy new boards, increasing your stats for the next race. The goal of the single player mode is to win every race, gather a whole lot of money and buy every boards, as well as completing little side-games.

Graphics: 7/10

The graphics in Snowboard Kids are nothing very flashy, but are easy on the eyes. Sometime they have very bad ''plate'' elements that turn out commical due to how dumb it look. Overall, they are fun to look at as you race and usualy pass by too fast for you to really focus on them. This isn't the strong point of the game though, rather the weakest one.

Music (and sound): 8/10

Ohhh that one is good though. I really love Snowboard Kids' music. it's lively and have a style of its own. My favorite is the first track's music but they are all neat. The voices are lively too and blend in really easily, they almost seem natural since they always seem somehow apropriated. The music is one of the strong points of the game.

Replay Value: 8/10

I beat that game at least 5 times with everything unlocked and a load of extra money and can say... you'll easily be able to beat this around once a year without getting bored of going through the whole game. The races are fun, challenging and unpredictable, the AI is surprisingly good and the money system is cool. There is one very hard track at the very end where you'll unlock a secret, ultimate character... good luck beating him, you'll need to master the art of avoiding the unavoidable and beating everyone to the lift to prevail.

Pros&Cons:

Pros:

- Unpredictable races with fun to use items and a lot of neat game mechanics to master over time.
- Surprisingly cool sound track.
- Fun money system.
- Hard and random in an awesome way.
- AI keep the pressure on you until the very end.

Cons:

- Underrated
- Kinda sucky graphics if you want to nitpick.

One of the best third party games of all time.