Remember when Extreme Sports were all the rage? Remember when your video game characters were brimming with nothing but ‘tude? Well, time to enter the world of Snow Surfers on the Dreamcast and get back to those cruder (in certain ways) times!
 
Developed by UEP Systems of Cool Boarders on PlayStation fame, Snow Surfers is an often overlooked member of the series. It doesn’t help that it has a different name in each territory. In Japan it’s known as Cool Boarders Burrrn acknowledging its lineage, but in North America it’s known as Rippin’ Riders Snowboarding. The reason it didn’t use the Cool Boarders title stateside is apparently due to the distribution rights of the series falling with a now-defunct arm of Sony. This not being a Mega-CD game, it’s fair to point that yes this game was distributed/published by Sega. It’s on the Dreamcast, after all.
 
But whatever you want to call it, the very nature of the game is what you’d come to expect with an ‘action sports’ title of its day. ‘Cool’ characters with attitude, a funky Hip Hop-styled dance soundtrack and totally tubular voice-overs. That about says it all for the main presentation, quite honestly. It’s not exactly the most scientifically produced or heartfelt fare by any stretch. It does slot itself happily into its niche and delivers what series and genre fans would be expecting. Not going above and beyond, but just being there. Standard, if you will. It has to be said that the intro vid is still pretty cool to this day, utilising in-game graphics with smooth edits and good music.

I can’t help, even if it was unintentional (keep in mind back then it was Daddy023 who owned the PlayStation so my Cool Boarders knowledge was practically non-existent, the Dreamcast was my child I’ll have you know!), to make direct comparisons to Sega’s own Crazy Taxi. The characters remind me of Crazy Taxi (at the very least Axel), the over the top arcade play style, etc. Yet most of this comparison would simply be from a younger Olly023 wanting every game to be Crazy Taxi. Yeah. I really dug Crazy Taxi. Deal. However, playing this back recently for the purpose of the review I really can’t see my initial comparisons much anymore. They seem to have faded with time, yet my overall experience and enjoyment of Snow Surfers has surprisingly increased…
 
There is not a whole lot of modes of play available, although the basics are covered. You essentially have your race type, or trick type. On the main menu you can select Match Race to play with friends, but no one wanted to play this with me for the review. So, I can’t officially comment (I remember it being aiiiight, though). They’re listed as FR Free Ride (race mode), SP Super Pipe (trick mode), MR Match Race (multiplayer) and the developers also whack in the obligatory Options choice on the main menu, too. Under OP. D’uh.
 
You get seven characters to select from off the bat (or would it be board?), all with varying skill sets. There’s also two hidden characters so OHMYGODYOUGOTZTAWORKFORIT. Word. The thing you’ll immediately notice is that Jimmy is represented by a Salomon logo, so he’s essentially a faceless billboard as far as the game is concerned. Poor Jimmy. You got the bleach-blonde white guy, the cool Japanese girl, the hard as nails black guy, the sassy black girl, the Asian DJ and the Rastafarian (obviously named Bob). So all manner of stereotypes lay at your disposal, folks. Get in!

The gameplay itself is solid enough. It’s far, far from bad but there’s literally nothing outstanding that’d have you recommending this to every man, woman and child under the sun. It handles well enough, but can be a bit confounding at first. Coz manuals are for suckers. Though the majority of what you need is easily accessible. That’s your thumb stick and you’re A-button. Even in race mode you are forced to bust out some gnarly tricks, so be prepped for those jumps or the commentator will just hound you with the fact you need more practice. This’ll become essential, too as they appear to add extra time which can be sorely needed if you want to you know, get to the end of the track. That’s the thing, though. The first time you play don’t be shocked if you suddenly get an OUT OF TIME after bombing it down a mountain. It happens to the best of us. It’s the game, it’s how it rolls.
 
Graphically it looks good, contextually speaking. Only problem being my end in that I was playing this on review through SCART on a contemporary HD-TV and didn’t check for any available VGA options. My fault, sorry guys. But the characters are all of a nice size, though very white (yurp) the tracks look pretty enough and it all moves along rather smoothly with only the occasional clipping, yet the draw distance is far from horrendous which ultimately is what you need to rely on with any game of this sort. Perhaps graphics wise it sits somewhere between Crazy Taxi (oh, there it is again – oopsie!) and previous series efforts from UEP Systems. Again, standard fare where the Dreamcast is concerned; but you should be hardly expecting Shenmue with a title like Snow Surfers or you’d be classed as a mental guy, guy.
 
Now the soundtrack is pretty nice. I will give it that benefit of the doubt all day long, sirs and sirettes. Jimmy’s theme in particular is a stand out track (pretty much consensus as far as I’m concerned, as I found it on YouTube while re-writing this review), but the majority of the OST is good stuff and well worth a listen. Generic in the good sense, peeps. Check it. That said you can easily find the soundtrack under the games alternative titles online so if you want your late 90’s dance fix of chill loops, go seek it out. If you regret it you just aren’t cool, dawg.