Tommy Moe's Winter Extreme for SNES
Review #639
Tommy Moe's Winter Extreme
More Outrun than 1080
Gameplay
I debated between categorizing this as a minigame collection or a driving game. Not for one second did I consider calling this a sports game since the gameplay amounts to holding B while moving left or right. That's the extent of the entire game. Ultimately I think it bills itself as a collection of four distinct events, each with minute differences. That's pretty much the definition of "games" in this minigame genre so I'm keeping it here. Its gameplay is incredibly shallow and I got about 5 minutes of enjoyment out of it. I won't play it ever again, so thanks for the 5 minutes Tommy Moe.
Level Design
Four events which are pretty much the same thing. A skiing fan might take issue with that statement but I don't care.
FREERIDE - An Outrun-like racing game with a limited timer to get to the next checkpoint. You have to navigate 20+ segments to get to the finish. Even with save points and holding down on the "increase speed" button continuously I can't get to the second checkpoint. Completely impossible. But hey, at the start of the first segment you can hit moguls that let you do jumps and flips. I played this first and thought this game was going to be an early 1080 but alas it was not.
SLALOM - Quickly pass through between poles (or gates) on the left and right side of the path. The gates are close together so playing this event amounts to holding B and pressing right for 1 second, then left for 1 second, and repeating that pattern for 30 more seconds.
GIANT - Just like slalom, but add a 1 second pause after pressing right or left and repeat the pattern for 40 seconds instead of only 30.
DOWNHILL - Just like giant, but add another 1 second pause and repeat for 60 seconds.
Theme
This is the one and only snowboard game on the SNES. I guess the Winter Olympics game should count. But this one is "Extreme" so props for originality.
Art Style
Mode 7 at its finest. Just kidding, F-Zero has this one beat. I realize it's the subject matter that creates this limitation but the graphics amount to a single sprite animating against a completely white bitmap being rotated via Mode 7 with some added hill effects that just make it harder to see the curves in the path. In fact, these effects happen so fast that it's almost nauseating. Point is, aside from the hill effects, this game is just boring to look at.
Audio
No music during gameplay. Only a handful of sounds exist, such as turning and hitting a pole.
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