Ski-Doo Snowmoblie Challenge (Wii) Review
Posted by Stephen Randle on 02.20.2010
Is this budget-priced racer worth your money? Stephen Randle straps on his ski goggles and takes it for a spin inside!
Title: Ski-Doo Snowmobile Challenge
Publisher: Valcon Games
Developer: Mere Mortals
Genre: Racing
Players: 1-2 (local only)
Rated: E for Everyone – Mild Violence
Also Available On: XBox 360, PS3
Following in the vein of ATV Offroad Fury and other games where you race vehicles that aren’t cars, Ski-Doo Snowmobile Challenge is an arcade-style racing game that puts you in the seat of actual licensed Ski-Doos, where you face off against seven other AI racers on tracks from all over the world, as well as tracks where the only purpose is to pull off the sickest, coolest jumps and tricks you can before time runs out.
The racing genre for the Wii has been limited up until now, so how does this budget-priced game stack up against other titles that are out there? Let’s have a look.
Seeing the underside of a Ski-Doo is usually not a good thing
Graphics
Well, it’s a Wii port of a budget game, so unfortunately you’re going to take what you can get. The racers are fuzzy blobs of colour, with a small plume of blurry white particles shooting out from behind that obscures half the snowmobile anyway. Many of the obstacles are simple blocks, often blurry, and even the larger set pieces are noticeably lacking detail, such as a giant snowplow that you jump in the very first race which looks like it was built out of a child’s building blocks. The tracks themselves are, well, snow and ice, mostly featureless. Credit goes to the background designers for some lovely painted backgrounds of mountain vistas, but it’s also fairly obvious that they’re flat, static backgrounds. And I ask this, what it with the lens flares? I know, it’s realistic, and the graphics department obviously put a lot of work into including them and making them move with the light, but in an arcade-style racing game with tight turns and loose controls, having a lens flare sitting over your rider’s shoulder for half the track, especially when it’s the most obvious graphic in the entire game, is kind of distracting and unnecessary. To sum up, lens flares: great for cutscenes and slower-paced games, not great when you’re racing around a hairpin on snow at 90 miles/hour.
The additional hazard from the lack of detail in course obstacles is that you have no idea what will cause you to crash. Some boxes, signs, and the like will move out of your path, some are as unyielding as brick walls, and since they litter both sides of most of the tracks, it’s pretty improbable that you’ll go an entire race without plowing through at least half a dozen of them.
The screen is also pretty dominated by a multi-window HUD, which I feel tries to put too much information out there that could have been done using far less space or in far more subtle ways. I understand, it’s kind of cool to have a giant beating heart in the center of the adrenaline boost meter, but, like the lens flare, it’s incredibly distracting from the actual race.
Why, yes, that IS a human heart in my HUD
Gameplay
So, you have three racing options: GT, single race, or multiplayer. The multiplayer only supports two people playing locally on a split-screen, there is no online capability, which is not that much of a shock for a budget title. The limitation of two people is annoying for a system designed for “family play”, but understandable. The GT option is essentially a career mode, where you choose one of about a dozen racers, divided equally among males and females (which is mostly irrelevant since you never see them without full equipment, including a mask and goggles), then grouped into pairs with equivalent stats. Go equality! You’re given a basic model snow racer, and sent out to race on various courses in several different but graphically similar locations, such as Canada, Sweden, and the United States. As you win races or complete trick courses, you unlock new gear, Ski-Doos, and tracks, while earning funds that can upgrade your racer. Each racer has four areas than can receive an upgrade (but only one upgrade per area), but with twenty different Ski-Doos to unlock of increasing ability, it’s probably better to save your upgrade money until you hit a race that you just can’t win with the highest model you have.
Look at all the choices! Okay, not really
I mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: the steering is loose, especially in the early-grade Ski-Doos in the GT mode. If you hit a bump wrong, chances are you’ll be headed on a beeline off the track faster than you can say “oops”. And since you have roughly three seconds to get back “in bounds”, you’re more likely to end up rebooted back into the middle of the track, having lost significant ground in the meantime. In the straighter tracks, you won’t notice the steering so much, but this game packs in a fair number of tracks full to the brim with hairpins, multiple S-curves, and tight spaces where you’ll end up grinding your teeth in frustration more often than not.
And if using the regular steering function (which uses the nunchuk) isn't enough of a challenge, you can try and steer with Wii Motion Control! Calm down, because I do not recommend you ever do this, as the reaction of the controller seemingly isn’t up to the speeds of racing, and you’ll find yourself headed off the course more often than not.
Hope you like off-roading, you’ll be doing it a lot
In addition, no matter which configuration you use, every single button on the Wii-mote needs to be used in order to accelerate, brake, jump, use boost, do tricks off jumps, tweak those same tricks, and lean your body forwards and backwards, so be prepared either to have some busy hands or just forego doing tricks at all during the race.
Which brings us to the “adrenaline boost” function. You can use this to gain quick bursts of speed and is represented, as I said, by a big meter surrounding a fairly graphic picture of a beating human heart. Classy. You fill the meter by doing tricks off the many jumps on the track, as well as taking out other racers. The problem with this is, the meter empties if you ever crash, and the easiest way to crash is by doing tricks or trying to take out other drivers. Also, doing tricks actually slows your momentum. You’re essentially caught between deciding to take massive risks for potential reward at some point in the race, or running a clean but unimpressive race without any boost, something that could be the difference between first place and the middle of the pack. Theoretically, that’s the idea, but the penalties associated with failure mean that nine times out of ten, you’re better off foregoing the boost meter.
Sound
The soundtrack itself features a large variety of generic punk/metal, as it typical for every single “X Sports” game since Tony Hawk. Aside from that, the atmospheric sound effects are unimpressive and virtually non-existent. Ski-Doos all accelerate with generic engine noises and make almost cartoonish crash noises when they hit things. Apparently there’s crowd noise during the race, but I never noticed it. Really, nothing offensively bad, but nothing that stands out as worthy of note, either.
Lasting Appeal
Well, all the unlockables are through GT mode, and there are twenty Ski-Doos, about a dozen outfits, and nearly thirty total tracks to open up that way. The game claims that you can’t play any Ski-Doo’s or tracks that you haven’t unlocked through GT mode in single race or multiplayer, but that’s entirely untrue, as both are fully open from the start. If you want to do the full GT experience, it would probably take the average racer between four and five hours to open everything up.
Twice the players, twice the HUD!
Fun Factor
Basically, you’re racing snowmobiles across a bunch of tracks that mostly look the same, give or take a random obstacle. If you like racing Ski-Doos, you’ll have some fun for a while, but once you unlock everything in GT, you’ll probably only haul it out to play multiplayer with your friends. And even then, unless you really like Ski-Doos, it’s more likely you’ll gravitate to Mario Kart Wii or a more realistic, deeper game.
The 411
If you’ve been looking for an arcade-style Ski-Doo racing game, Ski-Doo Snowmobile Challenge is a decent choice, especially since it’s a budget-priced game. Just be warned, with a budget game comes budget game problems, and in this case it’s a tricky and often unresponsive steering system, especially if you attempt to use motion control. There are much better racing games out there, but for a lazy afternoon of hanging out with your friends playing multiplayer, it’s not a bad rental.
Graphics
4.5
The scenery is pretty nice, but the racers themselves are big blobs
Gameplay
4.5
GT mode is fun, but the loose steering will give you fits, and stay away from the motion control
Sound
5.0
Nothing spectacular, but there are some decent tunes while you race
Lasting Appeal
4.0
Once you unlock everything in GT, all that you have left is local, 2-player, multiplayer races
Fun Factor
5.0
There are better racers out there, but for the price it is not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
