X2 Snowboarding
by Chris Thomas on Thursday 18th Feb 2010

I remember the first time I fell over, or “bailed”, on a snowboard back when I first started. About 20 seconds before it actually happened, and I hit the deck, I could tell it was imminent. It was like a spider sense. I was uncontrollably shooting down the piste in a perfectly straight line; I could sense that gravity had taken control and that whatever machinations I had mentally lined up for my snowboard were henceforth to be ignored. My legs wobbled. The back front edge of the board caught the snow and I slammed front first and skidded down the mountain for a good few yards. Despite the pain and the human face shaped dent in the ground I kept on with the hobby, I kept riding, because when it goes well it is just incredibly satisfying. The same applies here to X2 Snowboarding, a wonderful new iPhone game that I shall spend the next few paragraphs deconstructing for your reading pleasure. Spoiler: It comes highly recommended.

When I reviewed Alpine Racer, back when the App Store was just starting to yield some truly noteworthy games, I was able to overlook the many flaws because it captured the speed and fluidity of the sport. X2 Snowboarding takes this to a whole new level (particularly on this authors 3GS) as you zip down the mountain pulling insanely elaborate jumps or impressive grind combinations. In short; the game provides a thrill. Indeed this is no simulation, X2 is probably best compared to the old PlayStation 2 favourite series SSX with outlandish triple back flips and boost abilities being the order of the day. The result is a zippy, exciting game that really delivers in two key areas: Its fun as hell and, perhaps more importantly, when you manage to do something particularly noteworthy you feel like a champion. It’s just downright satisfying.

I hate to dwell over control schemes with reviews these days. Yes, it’s an iPhone and yes virtual on-screen buttons are at play here but they work very well. I will attempt to surmise the interface as quickly as possible. Steering and leaning forwards or backwards is handled via tilting the device. A big virtual jump button sits in the bottom left while a manual and boost button occupy the bottom right. Once you’re airborne flips and spins are handled by swiping (or tilting depending on your setup) and grabs are performed by touching an onscreen representation of your board that appears only while you’re mid-jump. In short; everything is where it should be and the screen is kept free of clutter by keeping the controls context sensitive.

The only issue we have with the control is that sometimes just before landing a big jump we might wish to pre-place our thumb over the jump button so we have enough momentum for an imminent ramp. Unfortunately the contextual buttons have replaced jump with the tail of a snowboard because we’re still in the air. Instead of preparing another jump we end up tail grabbing as we land causing us to bail and lose our points. It’s a small issue that only cropped up on occasion but its worth watching out for and something we hope can be fixed in future updates. Speaking of future updates, while the game currently only supports local multiplayer we understand that online multiplayer is due to be implemented in a forthcoming update. Our experiences with online gaming on the iPhone have been fairly hit and miss, so frankly, the current omission of online play is no big deal in our view. Your mileage may vary.

Visually X2 Snowboarding separates itself from the pack with a combination of detailed environments, a vibrant colour palette and a stunning in-motion cel-shaded visual aesthetic. The characters have sufficiently detailed models and are beautifully animated thanks to X2 taking the time to use motion capture technology. It could be argued that the selection of characters aren’t well balanced, for instance one of them has a high speed stat but very poor jumping ability while another will boast a completely opposite skill set. The trick is to select the right boarder for the type of event be it racing or more trick based gameplay.

So it looks great and the gameplay fundamentals are as solid as a rock, but X2 Snowboarding is one of those wonderful games to go the extra mile and implement some more interesting concepts into its feature set. In this instance it’s the ability to manipulate time like some Pepsi Max chugging Prince of Persia. By successfully performing tricks you can build up an adrenaline bar, this can then be used to rewind time or slow it down. In the case of the former ability this obviously lets you take another stab at a botched up jump should you happen to…well, botch it up. This is great for people like me who love to get a perfect run but don’t relish the thought of hitting the restart button every time something goes wrong (incidentally hitting restart is an insta-load). The time slowing feature is pretty self explanatory, suffice to say it’s pretty helpful on some of the more complicated courses.

X2 Snowboarding does a lot stuff right, hell it gets almost everything right. From the crisp and vivid graphics to the fluid animation and satisfying mix of racing and trick based gameplay. X2 Snowboarding is an easy recommendation. You really can tell that a lot of work and effort went into making this the best game in its genre on the App Store and the team should be commended for doing so. Even the soundtrack has been laboured over with licensed songs from the likes of Bonobo and Mr Scruff to name a couple.  With this release X2 Games have simultaneously made themselves a force to be reckoned and crystallised their position as being one of those talented studios to keep an eye on over the coming year. We’re expecting great things.

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