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Disney Sports: Snowboarding

Score: 40%
ESRB: Everyone
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Media: Cart/1
Players: 1 - 2
Genre: Sports

Graphics & Sound:

Disney can't seem to understand that too much of a good thing often leads to disaster. The Disney Sports series, which includes such titles as Soccer and Golf, have flooded the sports market with titles featuring the likeness of Mickey Mouse and his happy crew partaking in some out of the ordinary versions of popular sports franchises. Now with Disney Sports Snowboarding, the Disney characters have a chance to take it to the slopes. However, the originality of the Disney Sports series has faded away, and Disney Sports: Snowboarding lacks any substance to make it stand out from the pack.

Graphically, Disney Sports: Snowboarding has popular Disney characters grinding down curvy roads on a variety of snowboards. Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Pete, Chip and Dale are all included in Disney Sports: Snowboarding. The characters' reactions to environments, and their fluidity, however, are not affected by the game. For the most part, characters remain static on top of their board. When a trick move is performed, the animations are short lived and choppy. At certain points, little cinematic animations add a bit of charm to Disney Sports: Snowboarding. The animations are true to Disney's two dimensional representations of the characters and are neat, as well as fun, to watch.

Even though the characters are less than stellar, the levels are still worth taking a gander at. Different environments, ranging from snow covered mountains to techno-clad pipeways, allow for a number of different obstacles and situations. However, each environment in itself does suffer from plenty of repetition. There are only so many different ways to plow yourself into fallen trees, or jump over ill placed rocks. The music also wanders off into repetition, and lackluster effects cease to pull the game out of its misery.


Gameplay:

As with the rest of Konami's Disney Sports titles, Disney Sports: Snowboarding allows you to control a number of Disney characters. While earlier Disney Sports titles succeeded at making the game available to both children and older gamers, more recent titles seem to be directly marketed at the younger group. Disney Sports: Snowboarding removes any objectivity from the sports title, and relies entirely on the Disney character cameos to carry the game over.

Using a similar setup to Disney Sports: Skateboarding, Disney Sports: Snowboarding gives players 5 modes: Race, Trick, Rally, Time Trial and Multiplayer. Regardless of mode, the same objectives are clear, beat your opponent and make it to the end of the course first. Each mode takes players through all of the courses, with some modes letting you earn special trick abilities and different snowboards. Different players can interact with each other by swapping boards and racing each other.

The use of tricks in Disney Sports: Snowboarding seems underrated. Tricks ranging from back flips to side grinding let characters earn points for each proper execution. Performing tricks from specially marked ramps give higher scores than tricks performed from elsewhere. In each of the modes, even the Trick mode, I found myself wanting more out of my tricks, and I felt more value was placed on finishing races first than figuring out the toughest trick.


Difficulty:

Considering it's demographic, Disney Sports: Snowboarding definitely sets the goals of the game at a simplified playing field. Audiences need only the ability to navigate through windy courses quickly to succeed. Tricks come easily by fumbling aimlessly on the keypads, and navigating through courses should come natural to even the most novice of players.

Game Mechanics:

A bit of a twist in controls makes Disney Sports: Snowboarding a little frustrating at first. Direction is controlled entirely by the Left and Right shoulder buttons, where the direction pad is used for performing tricks. Separating the two operations does lend to a much simpler style, though it may feel awkward at first. However, after playing the game for a little while, the controls feel natural and the game takes a dive. Once you have the controls down and take a few shots at the courses in the game, there isn't much else to do. The different boards don't really provide much extra usage, and different characters, though some perform differently than others, are only challenging to certain extents.

Overall, I believe Disney and Konami have milked all they can out of the Disney Sports line. The games, once appealing and innovative, are now turning into lackluster products aimed straight at little kids who do not know better. If you already own any of the other Sports games, spare yourself the time by not picking this one up.


-==Boy, GameVortex Communications
AKA Kyle Prestenback

Nintendo GameBoy Advance Disney Sports Skateboarding Nintendo GameBoy Advance Disney Sports Soccer

 
Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated