Game #845: Trick'N Snowboarder

 Snowboardin' zombies.

 Let's get this out of the way first: You can unlock Resident Evil 2 characters, namely Leon, Claire and a Zombie cop, in Trick 'n Snowboarder. That should've already sold you on the game.

 Tony Hawk this is not, but as soon as I could I mapped X to jump, Square to flips and Circle to grabs, because that's the correct scheme for x-treme sports videogames that involve boards. R1 and L1 are used to spin on the air, for tricks, or to help you turn while snowboarding down. Overall, it felt a bit clunky and stiff, but I got used to it and started having fun.

 The game is pretty arcadey, which is why I wound up enjoying it so much. It's all about scoring points by tricks, and most of the time it's you against the slope, but there is a multiplayer mode. There's also a Story Mode, which has you performing tricks on specific parts of every stage as well as snowboard against 'rivals' and a free mode to snowboard to your heart's content.

 There's a very lame create-a-character mode, and you enhance you stats by going through story mode. You can unlock unique characters seemingly at random by playing the Story Mode. They look pretty neat, the 2-D artwork of these characters is top notch.

 There's a small but serviceable amount of tracks. The story mode can be beaten in under an hour, but considering characters unlock at random... that's for the best.

 The framerate can take a dive, specially in Story Mode whenever you get the 'trick cam'.

 The game is quite fun to play, but not as good as the Tony Hawk games. And maybe that's an unfair comparison, but the game is similar enough to warrant the comparison, 'sides, I'm pretty sure Activision had a Snowboarding Tony Hawk clone. Still, the game can stand on its own two feet, and the Resident Evil 2 characters are a neat curiosity.

 7.0