There are a lot of people outside of football or hot air ballooning in our community. From American football to golf to baseball games and other more minority sports, video games have always sought to give the lead to all kinds of disciplines. And for good reason: planting games with rules, punctuation, winners and losers is a recipe for both; and the versatility of digitizing sport to produce a competent and capable product is such that we have even been able to see the merging of cars with shoes without having to match the upbringing of someone who likes to sleep more day than night .
All of these examples have been ups and downs. Skateboarding had a particularly bright time in the 90s, but the last decade hasn’t been particularly good for it, and only the appearance in recent years of games like the Tony Hawk remake or the recent Olliguido World figured prominently in the lists. Others, like the water bikes of the mystical Wave Race 64 or the snowboard of the more mystical 1080º Snowboarding, have gradually disappeared, doomed to be part of the batiburrillos in those who rarely shine with their own light. Grinders have come to try to change that, to consecrate the last of the sports cited to the light of hearths; but his indie game character eventually embraced a noble proposition in a very short-lived experience.
We recommend it, and it’s its control system. There’s something very admirable about I-Illusions’ efforts to bring snowball to PC and Xbox, and that’s how the board is responding. I’m not just referring to the feeling of sliding down a mountain, nor to the sharpness that makes sense: the squeaks on the ramps are extremely physical, the squeaks are soft or brushy according to our conscious needs, and the squeaks are very convenient to not let us ever sold. This is probably my favorite part of the control: where other games are deliberately opaque when it comes to teaching us when we can finish a round and when we’re going to eat off the floor, Shredders is extraordinarily clear in all of this, which gives the very small impression that we walk in the snow thinking that it is not our fault.
It’s something that goes very well with the sections in which the game already takes us to our ball, in an open lucky world thought to find tracks and losses through the mountain, feeding that feeling of disconnection from the world that this type of landscapes. Compared to the rest of the proposal, it is here that the main merit of the game is found, systematically not bothering the player with the additional superficial types of extreme sports, and leaving us hanging while we think about certain things, we are stuck another round and we compete with ourselves.
But these additions are the same, however, and it is from this point that the game begins to lose the thread and show the multiple models that convert the modesty of the study directly into handicaps. They are not professional, like the fictional techniques that add drones or snowmobiles to solve certain mobility problems -on all costs up- and assume at least a small point of originality in the proposal; and there are direct requirements. The inclusion of a historical mode, so ironic that it sounds like someone who really enjoys this kind of thing in sports games, is the biggest problem here: a mode that consists of short tests but, above all, a bunch of bad video clips that intersect with the action to the point of drastically cutting off the pacing.
I use the word poor not only to designate the quality of the content, with that sloppy tone imposed like a pig to last in a bottle of forty-five years with his children, but also the technician: that’s where the game is hinca la rodilla y se ve de real its independent character, with very acceptable graphics that do not represent the rest of the game -modern, but quite decent in general in the way of representing the mountain in sí-, and with tricks like put one of huge glasses and a thermal boast in the mouth to all the characters so as not to have to model their features. If these are some of the proofs that time and time again compel us to wait for our companion, or to repeat the same mechanical action over and over again, you will understand why the final result hastens to be the first stone of a future resurrection of the generation.
The cut can also be too cruel with the Shredders. The conditions that led to its development speak of a modest game, a motivated team (with references like SSX or Amped in mind) and a budget much shorter than that of many other similar games that seem stand out. Arming a snowboarding game can be simple in the way of understanding the tricks, but complex enough in the timing to execute its distinctive combinations, is cause for admiration, at least up to a point. But its intent to be a complete two-character game has already seriously damaged the whole thing, and giving that “I will and I can’t” feel is so inconsistent that, in this case, insane. Getting back to 1080º snowboarding today without the nostalgia shortcomings can be difficult, but learning from the simplicity of its concept is, quiz, the best lesson you could have taken.
