Boarder Zone

Boarder Zone is a video game in the sports genre developed by Housemarque Ltd. and published by Infogrames Europe SA originally released in 1999. It is currently playable on Windows.

To the slopesTo be honest, with spring finally on the horizon here in cold eastern Ontario, the last thing I want to do is touch anything that reminds me of winter. I've had enough of snow, slush and all the irritating chores that go along with them. My shovel and car brush are in storage and I won't get them out until I can flip the calendar until Nov. Get it?

Apparently, some people don't.  Infogrames (insert gratuitous contempt for the French here) released the snowboard simulator designed by Housemarque Boarder Zone at the same time that green grass was starting to reappear all over the western world. How about some good timing? With this in mind, I installed the title and sharpened my critical knives. I was ready to give Boarder Zone a good textual thrashing when I was stopped by the fact that this is a pretty good game. Other than the release date, I found very little to complain about. This is a fun and challenging arcade snowboarding game that accurately represents the speed and excitement of the real game. Aside from a few control issues (see below), it is a worthy rival to last year's XGames Pro Boarder (see my review) in every way.

If you've ever played a snowboarding game, or even mistakenly watched ten minutes of ESPN 2's XGames coverage, you'll get an idea of what Boarder Zone is all about. Namely, speed and acrobatics. Depending on the mode you play in, you'll want to be the first to the bottom of the mountain or the one who impresses the invisible judges the most with a series of acrobatic maneuvers. The game features five basic options for aspiring snowboarders to get their fix. Arcade lets you compete in a single run, Time Attack, Pipe, Big Air or Top 5. Races are simple runs to the finish, and Time Attack are practice runs that allow the practitioner to experiment with different trails down the mountainside. Pipe and Big Air focus on acrobatics. The former allows you to perform dozens of tricks on a half-pipe, while the latter forces you to focus all your energy on a big jump in front of a crowd. Both are a blast, but nothing beats pipe in terms of fun and intensity. Top 5 lets you compete against the top five performers in Time Attack. The Championship sets up a race course where you progress to the top of three snowboard clubs. Finish in the top three out of twelve competitors in your current club and you'll move up to a better one with a higher team. Think of this mode as a cross between the seasonal and tournament play offered by most traditional sports titles. Success here also unlocks tracks for Arcade play. Event showcase, practice and multiplayer (over a LAN, not network) are exactly what you'd expect.

Six different riders are at your disposal to be guided through these events under your name. They are the standard 'skate or go home' archetypes. Craig Tyron is too cool to be a pro rider, while Karl Ung is a former surfer and Ulrika Reqvist was a rebel who slept in bus stations until she heard Rossignol's call. Oh, and one of them is a kid named Mike Koontz. Pick him and you'll hear the announcer carefully pronounce his name every six seconds or so. get it? I guess the French like Porky's and old Jerry Lewis movies. A total of ten boards are eventually (some are locked at first) available for your riding pleasure. Each is rated according to speed, spin and flexibility, although I didn't notice much difference between them while playing. They all seemed a bit stiff to me. There are nine tracks to conquer in the game. They are set in three different terrain types - Alpine, Forest and Village - and are rated as Easy, Medium or Hard.

The presentation values are very high.  Boarder Zone supports resolutions up to 1600x1200 in 32-bit color, which makes the races quite dynamic. Events can take place at any time of the day, under clear skies or in snowy conditions. Colorful lighting thrown by flares set up to illuminate the tracks adds another dramatic element to the proceedings. The only drawback is a clipping problem that plunges practitioners knee-deep in snow at times. Sound effects are no more than average.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.