Stoked might have some stiff competition with Ubisoft’s Shaun White Snowboarding this holiday season, but it’s a different breed of underdog. It’s bizarre how similar both games sound to each other, and while Shaun White’s titular title has the clear visual advantage (it’s running on the Assassin’s Creed engine) the Absinthe Film sponsored Stoked has a few features of its own to attract an audience.
Snowboarding is a niche but the extreme sports genre hardly is. Anyone who has ever stepped on a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater skateboard has, at one point in time, convinced themselves that they would definitely be able to backflip from the roof of a Hawaiian hotel and land in to the empty pool below.
But Stoked isn’t aiming to be the Tony Hawk of snowboarding (SSX already has that ground covered… too bad it isn’t around this year) but is instead shooting for more of a simulation/arcade fusion to allow for both technical and accessible riding.
Developer Bongfish is shooting for realistic controls and fast paced riding, so controls that are akin to EA’s skate mean you’ll be controlling your character with the left stick and tricking with the right. Different players will adapt different play styles which will affect the different spins and grabs they can pull off, so there’s variety in how you play so be sure to mix it up.
The gameplay has a heavy focus on freeroam riding and multiplayer, and though you can apparently hit every inch of the five available mountains (with drop-access by helicopter) there won’t be restrictions as to where you and your friends can and can’t go without each other. Setting spawn points or race markers allows everyone to congregate for meet-ups, competitive racing, tricking and snapping sick photos of friends.
Aside from the online antics, the dynamic weather, which was accelerated for demonstration purposes when I saw it, will change the feeling of the snow depending on time of day and climate. Morning may see slush while the afternoon could provide perfect powder, but it was clarified to me that the weather would in no way detract from the fun. So don’t expect a blizzard to bury you or block your way – just to make things more interesting on the way down the mountain.
Shaun White also relies on its multiplayer, so it’ll be good to see who takes the cake this winter. Stoked hits in November, presumably close to the other boarding game – hopefully it isn’t buried by an avalanche of Ubi advertising, because it’s totally worth shredding to.
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