The sequel to the original “1080,” “1080: Avalanche” represents Nintendo’s second foray into snowboarding games-a sub-genre dominated by “SSX.” In comparison to the “SSX” games, especially “SSX Tricky,” “Avalanche” approaches the sport from a more realistic standpoint. The jumps aren’t as high, the tricks aren’t as wild and the characters and environments have a feeling of realism.
However, even with the greater realism, “Avalanche” stretches the imagination. The courses center around a handful of environments including a city, a rail yard and a working wood mill. Players race through these environments breaking glass, grinding handrails (and pipes and trees and nearly everything imaginable) and avoiding car wrecks.
At least one level has the player outrunning an avalanche and several levels offer tremendous jumps and drops that send players flying through the air. Often these jumps open into one of the game’s many alternate routes and shortcuts, adding to the replay value of the game.
The mix of real and extreme environments leads players to develop good racing form, combining just the right mix of turning and speed, during the more sedate portions and good twitchy reflexes for the more far out maneuvers, such as hitting multiple grinds while jumping over crevasses. In addition to simply jumping or grinding, aerial tricks can be performed as well.
The tricks serve a purpose during races, too-they charge a character’s power meter. When fully charged, the meter allows players to blast through obstacles and recover from falls without suffering a time penalty. It also allows players to knock their opponents to the ground. If one falls or runs into another player while the meter is fully charged, the charge is lost, but ordinary obstacles (like pedestrians or roadblocks) don’t affect the charge at all. The charge can be used defensively, as well-two charged players collide, both lose their charges, but neither falls.
The characters are about what one would expect from a snowboarding game: gamer kid, cute girly girl (my character), more athletic girl and stand-offish big guy. Admittedly, character development is not what this game is about. The snowboards, six per character, have much more character than the snowboarders. For instance, players can acquire “8-bit Soul,” a board emblazoned with an image of Mario himself.
The music really stands out. Contributing bands include Filter and Squid, probably my two favorite bands in the line-up. Everyone who has played my copy of the game, primarily my roommates, have found the music selection to be far above par for a video game.
In addition to the standard racing mode, there is a trick mode, where you are scored performing tricks, a time trial mode which includes a coin gathering challenge that unlocks extra features and a slalom mode.
All three modes are fun on their own, and the trick mode allows you to perfect your tricks, granting an extra edge while racing. The slalom and time trial modes are helpful, too. They uncover quicker or secret routes which players would otherwise have difficulty finding.
Overall, “1080: Avalanche” is fun to play and slightly addictive. If you like a combination between racing and tricks played to one of the best soundtracks in the console industry, I highly recommend it. However, if you favor more trick oriented snowboarding games or racing games with a large number of options and upgrades, I’d recommend “SSX: Tricky” or the “Gran Turismo” series instead.