319 · Heavy Shreddin'
In this snowboarding game, the player goes on various runs completing events on downhill mountains. There are five events in all: Downhill, Slalom, Half-pipe, Moguls and Backwoods. In Downhill the object is to get down the slope as fast as possible. In Slalom you have to guide the board between the gates. In halfpipe, you have to perform stunts on a half pipe. In Moguls, you have to jump over both small and large moguls. In Backwoods, you'll be given different obstacles to contend with and you'll have to find away to get around them.
Heavy Shreddin' is our first snowboarding game on the NES, and the box sells it as part skiing, part skateboarding and part surfing. Mike, Sean and Joe were on this one. We came in with goodwill from SSX and Steep, and left feeling we had trudged downhill for half an hour.
What it does
Each trail on the mountain strings events together in a fixed order: downhill, slalom, halfpipe, moguls and backwoods. You can't pick events individually. The first trail is named something like Poser Peak, so the game insults you before you have done anything. We liked the idea of keeping you on your toes, and the arcade silliness is fine, but a highway that loops around the mountain like Hotel California is a lot to ask of a ramp.
What goes wrong
- The speed. Pushing right to go faster hits top speed almost at once and you never feel it, so a game called "Heavy Shreddin'" feels like trudging. Mike had hoped for the S-curves of modern snowboarding games.
- Turning. Sometimes left and right steer you, and other times they spin you until you are going backward. We think it shifts with the slope, but the screen is flat white and the horizon is the only clue.
- Hitboxes. There is no behind a tree. Sometimes an overlap makes sense, and sometimes anywhere near the sprite is a crash.
- Time limits with no wiggle room. We kept finishing with no time left, or with 0.8 seconds. We completed the trails, but you cannot make a mistake.
- The halfpipe is Simon Says. At first Joe thought it was impossible, and the answer was in the manual: do the exact trick called on screen, like a 360 or a mid-air jump, or you crash. We wanted a time limit and freedom to score with our own tricks.
- Forced mini-games. Being thrown into the halfpipe mid-run breaks the flow, and the backwoods stage reminded us of the Paperboy training course, except here it isn't optional bonus points.
The woman
After each trail, a very detailed, shadowy, 80s-haired woman with purple eyes tells you good, then great. We found it genuinely startling. We couldn't tell whether she is excited or just humoring you, and Sean placed her in the Whamverse from the Last Christmas video. Joe's theory is that she is a leftover placeholder for testers, and her lukewarm responses are the game's opinion of itself. Imagineering developed it, and also did Ghostbusters 2.
Beyond the game
The back of the box has a Snowboard Magazine endorsement saying the realism is uncanny, which sets you up for disappointment. In Europe it was called Snowboard Challenge. We liked the music, but the game never captured snowboarding culture.
The bottom line
Skip it. All three of us said no to the Essential Games List. Joe called it fine, a first as a verdict for us, and Sean said he won't have fun with extreme sports games until Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Even with skiing, skateboarding and surfing combined, it isn't enough.
Written from our conversation in this episode.
- Part Skiing, Part Skateboarding, Part Surfing…It’s Snowboarding!
- NES Longplay
- Manual
- Snowboard video game
- Gameplay
- There are five different events and a total of 18 levels of play. In order to progress to the next event, the player must first successfully complete the event before it.
- 3 different mountains
- The Events
- downhill: In this event the player must avoid hitting objects and falling. It is a timed run, so if the player takes too long, they will be sent back up to the top of the slope. The same goes for falling and colliding into objects.
- Slalom: The goal of this event is to pass through the flags placed along the slope. If the player fails to get between the pairs of flags they will return to the top of the mountain.
- Half-pipe: This event is all about points. The player must gain up speed and perform tricks at the peak of either side of the half-pipe.
- you need to do the exact command that comes on the screen, so when it says "jump" simply do a jump and not a 360 or handplant or something, and then when it says "360 spin" do only a 360. I thought maybe the text was telling me what trick I was about to do, but looking up the manual online I see there are specific commands to do specific tricks.
- Moguls: In order to pass this event the player must perform tricks to jump over the moguls (bumps in the snow).
- Backwoods: The last event is mostly a combination of speed, tricks, and survival. It tests everything the player has learned throughout the game. This event is very difficult.
- There are several ways in which the player is able to score points in the game. Some of the ways are:
- Avoiding objects, such as trees and flags, by sliding up or down on the screen
- Performing tricks
- Jumping off of ramps and other elevated terrain
- The player performs tricks by jumping and then pressing in any direction on the directional pad.
- The first trail is not really a beginner trail
- GOOD! - Close up sprite of a woman just saying GOOD after you complete a trail
- The Vibe
- These games live and die by the vibe
- They put an endorsement from Snowboard Magazine on the back of the box…The Realism is uncanny
- Sequels and Spinoffs
- It was released in Europe with the title Snowboard Challenge.
- EGL
- NEXT WEEK - Image Fight
- A pictionary brawler
Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.
Heavy shredding, part skiing, part skateboarding, part surfing, it's snowboarding!
And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Is there ever a moment where other sports are defined by the parts of other sports that might be similar to them? I feel like snowboarding didn't need to be done so dirty that it was like- I mean like is it that new?
Is snowboarding like still only 40 years old? But like, you know, the 90-1990 is still part of that like 80s rad stuff where like skateboarding is cool and surfing's cool as we saw in Town & Country, Water, Surf, Designs, whatever that video game was called. Oh yeah. You know, so I don't know where skiing- Wooden water rage. Yeah, I don't- But they don't- Yeah, I don't- They don't describe skateboarding as like- It's like driving, but the car is really small and there's no engine. You have driving, not walking. Your body's the car. Yeah. It's like walking.
I will be honest that when you started reading that back in the box, I had a mini panic attack. I was like, did I miss like three quarters of this game with the skiing and the sledding and whatever all these other- Snow dogs, whatever all these other sports were. Wow, we got robbed of a snow dog video game. That would be pretty awesome. You like raise the dogs, you breed them over time to get better dogs. It's like part Tamagotchi, part movie, part sport.
But Heavy Shredden is, to be clear, just a snowboarding game and it is actually our first snowboarding game. Snowboarding video games, you know, have a surprisingly like well-regarded, at least a few franchises. The SSX franchise, 1080 Avalanche. Like, it's surprising that there's more than one franchise that people think fondly of when they think of snowboarding games. Did you guys play either of those?
I've never even heard of 1080 Avalanche. I played some SSX. Well, you're not a Nintendo kid though, right? Like, I mean, you were for the NES or whatever. Oh, that was a 64? I think it was GameCube. Oh, okay. Um, no, I played, I played some SSX 3, I think. And I remember when Steep came out, I was like, oh, that looks cool. And then I never like even attempted to play it. Yeah, I had the same thing. I used to play, um, SSX like casually at like a friend's house when I was a kid. And also thought Steep looked really cool and also never played it.
And Steep is like really new. So, or not really new, but relatively new compared to the other two examples. So they're still making snowboarding video games, whereas we don't really see another Slalom successor anytime soon, right? I mean, maybe this is like the closest. I mean, yeah, because it's not skiing, but like there's Slalom is a, is a, an event in this game. Yeah, yeah. I guess I messed up. I guess I was saying more like Slalom the video game, which was skiing. Yeah. Whereas like, you know, here it's like heavy shred and it's new to us, right? On the NES catalog.
But snowboarding games are here to stay and people think they're pretty cool. And they're only getting like bigger. Like they kind of like were something you thought about for the X games. And now you think about them as an Olympic event. And I feel like snowboarding is, um, today's equivalent of what skateboarding was back then. Like now skateboarding feels less highlighted with the retirement of Tony Hawk. I guess. I don't know if I really hear much about snowboarding ever either. Other than like a friend of mine is like, hey, you learned to snowboard. Like I don't think I ever hear about like the actual like.
But I think he's retired too. So I'm just as exposed to snowboarding as I was in the early two thousands and the mid nineties. Um, well, I'm thinking of that. I don't know her name, unfortunately, but that girl who, um, has won like us Olympic gold in snowboarding in the last, like, at least last time that it happened, if not two times. But, um, I don't know her name. So I'm just as guilty as you guys of being negligent about the sport. We should be doing better.
Yeah. And maybe we'll do better when we talk about the game. Uh, the game itself is the way that it works is you are at this, uh, I'm not going to call it a resort because it's not like you're doing anything other than the events, but it's like a giant mountain and there are different paths on the mountain. And, uh, basically you have to take the beginner slope, uh, before you can progress on to the more difficult ones. There are five different events that, uh, that can occur in the game, but it doesn't mean that you can select, like, I'm going to tackle all the downhill options and, and get golds in them all or something like that. Like, that's not how this game works.
Instead, on this path of the mountain, you will be required to, uh, you know, to complete the events in succession of, of one another. So you might go from, like, doing the downhill portion to just immediately entering the slalom section to then doing the backwoods. Uh, and it's like, I don't think that's representative of any kind of real snowboarding sport, but it is kind of an interesting approach from a video game standpoint of keeping the player on their toes. Do you agree? Uh, yeah, I, I agree that it, that it's very much not how I think any kind of snowboarding excursion would go.
Um, I think it's funny to think that you're just sort of doing a, like, a point-to-point run down a slope and then you get to, like, the half pipe and then somebody's immediately shouting at you, like, do a barrel roll! Or, like, do a 360! Or, like, do the, uh, the mulligan kick and mule kick, sorry. And it's just, it's weird. It's very weird. But it sounds, but it's very arcade, too. Yeah, but my, my favorite part was that, uh, it's, you know, it is treating it, even though this is not necessarily, as far as I know, like, the way any events work, it's treating it like you're at an actual, like, professional snowboarding event. And, and, to my knowledge, none of those have you go across an active highway or, or jump over, like, an actual cliff.
Um, so, I, I was surprised by those, because I was taking it as, like, oh, this is trying to be, like, a grounded, serious, like, portrayal of snowboarding. And, well, it's okay to be silly, right? Like, I, I wasn't expecting to be grounded, because it does kind of have that arcade-y aspect to it. But, but, the highway thing is just confusing from, like, a how-does-the-mountain-work perspective.
Like, you're looking out there, and it's, like, there's these three mountains and all these different trails on the mountain, and somewhere there's just a highway running across these mountains? Like, press X to that. Yeah, the highway just goes in a circle. It's just, the highway just goes in a circle, loops back around to the beginning, around the, like, it's like a little halo around the mountain. If you're on the highway, you never get off, and you never were off. You've always been on it. Whoa. It's like some Hotel California stuff.
And so there's the downhill, the slalom, the halfpipe, the moguls, and the backwoods. And the way that it works, as I mentioned, is it's just kind of, like, depending on which trail you do, it's a different order. So the very first thing you do is the downhill, the slalom, and then the backwoods. And if you manage to make it through all three of these events, you will move on to the next trail. I just want to take a moment to call out how they named these trails, like these arrangements of events. The first one that you do is something like Poser Peak or something.
And I don't know if there's any game that just right off the bat insults you, kind of like that. Like, there are games that insult you personally, but the first thing you see is the game calling you a poser. I wasn't expecting that. Definitely wasn't expecting that. Also, wasn't expecting, not that the events themselves are so long, but, like, it is a bit of a gauntlet to, like, learn what's coming at you. Just in any of the particular, like, first three events here, the downhill, the slalom, and the backwood, you know, there's a lot of obstacles.
There's a lot of, like, time. There's a time limit. There's a control, like, understanding of, like, wrapping your brain around, like, do I have to move faster? Is there a way to move faster? Especially with the highway, like, to jump over it, like, it requires a very precise timing on that ramp. I guess what I mean is, is, like, when you're doing it right and you're snowboarding, it's a fun game. And it's very easy to dodge obstacles that you're aware are coming. But then the game purposely feels like it's throwing curveballs that they don't want you to get right away. They want you to, like, screw up and have to learn from them.
And sometimes that could just be the thing that you screw up is just the timing of a jump on a ramp. And I found that to be a lot less fun than, say, you know, oh, there's an, I got to dodge the other skiers that are in the way. Like, yeah, that's fine. Like, that works. And, you know, I'll learn that, no problem. The timing of a jump on a ramp, I don't know. Did I, was I the one who had problems with that? Oh, no, I had tons of problems. Uh, the, the sort of, like, not collision detection, but, like, just the, the, the physics and how it, like, detects clipping and what you, what it decides for you to trip over is completely ridiculous.
Um, so I had my frustrations. I don't think that the concept of the game throwing stuff at you that it wants you to fail at and try over, I don't think that's, like, a sin or anything. But I think that from the ground up, the movement and, uh, just feel of this game was off the whole time. Yeah. I, I particularly relate to that, uh, the, the, like, clipping hitboxes were very confusing to me, especially with the, with the trees.
Yeah. Because, like, sometimes it, sometimes it felt accurate where it's like, yeah, even though my sprite is colliding with the sprite of this tree, that's because, you know, it's taking up, it's taking up Z space or whatever. Like, you know, it's going upwards and I'm on the other side of it. And then sometimes that wasn't true. Sometimes it just felt like, oh, I just, if I go anywhere near that sprite, I'm hit. And there's no, there's no behind of this tree.
Yeah. Um, which was a little weird. But then I also, um, noticed to your point, Mike, about like this, like weird, like, like little things that you don't pick up on right away. It's like, there's, there's like a, I'm not even sure I could actually articulate what I learned. I just kind of like got the hang of it after a while, but there's like a weird relationship that I had with turning where like sometimes if I'm going, I think it was kind of like if, depending on like if I'm going downhill and I, you know, try to go to the left or the right on the screen, I'll go to the left or right. But then other times when I hit the left or right, like it would just turn, rotate me like all the way around until the point where I'm going backwards.
And, uh, that got confusing. And again, I don't know if I actually solved it like consciously. I think I just somehow got the feel for it eventually. I think what's going on here and it's hard to tell because again, it's all just flat white space and there's no like any indication of like if, if you're going downhill or not until you see like a line of trees that make a diagonal. But it is shifting between like a, maybe not like flat ground, but like a, a slight grade and a steep grade. And I think the directions you're supposed to press to turn and to move faster or slower, like that shifts with these like not very well telegraphed shifts in grade. Yeah. That's the only thing I can think.
Yeah. I, I gathered that too. And it, and it is funny because yeah, if there's not, if there's not those context clues, all you can look at is like the, the horizon to give you the idea of the slope. Cause everything else is pure white. There's no shading or anything. So there literally would be no way to tell unless you're looking off on the horizon and then you can see like, okay, the slope starts there. But even then if the slope on the horizon starts, there takes a second for your mind to like draw the line from the horizon, you know, diagonally across the screen to find where yours, you know, it's just, it's just not intuitive.
Is there enough of a different challenge between what the downhill is and what the slalom is, or, um, you know, the other two are the half pipe and the moguls, which require you to. Perform tricks. Like, is, is there a big difference between, uh, like a timed run versus, um, you know, going between the flags versus the half pipe has you do tricks on a half pipe, obviously, while the moguls has those little snow bumps that you have to do tricks to, um, to get over them. Did you feel like there was an actual variety or more like it was just, you know, oh, okay. I'm kind of doing the same thing, but now I, I just arbitrarily have to go between these flags versus, um, dodging.
I prefer sort of what they did to differentiate the like survival run slash downhill slash, uh, slalom because you were using, I mean, as confusing as we just described, at least like it, it's all the same mechanics. Um, whereas with the, the half pipe, um, it just completely changes how the game plays. And I guess that can add some, uh, that definitely adds some variety. But when, when like the runs are so short and I mean, I know that you're supposed to fail a lot to extend like the, the length of the game, but it makes that one feel like a, like this is a, not a party game, but just a bunch of like mini games that don't have a lot of depth.
Um, so I, when you can keep the same mechanics, like the movement style between these things that just have different objectives, I, I would prefer that as opposed to that. Like, yeah, the half pipe was just weird. Yeah. I, I, that's why I'm kind of like torn in general on the idea that like, yeah, that this is split up by levels of difficulty of the peaks, but you, not by event.
Because it's, it's, it is jarring to be like, yeah, I'm doing these events that all kind of like feel like they have, they require similar skills. And in the middle of it, I have to do this other thing. And I don't know if, if I had chosen, okay, I'm going to do the half pipe thing now. And it's like, that's what I'm doing. It might feel a little more like I could get into it, but now it feels like, okay, this is a thing I have to get through to, to complete the, you know, it's like, it doesn't matter how good I'm doing it. The other thing, now I got to do this, this additional, this additional totally different game in order to like, to make that count.
Whereas like, I would rather be like, okay, now I'm going to sit down and I'm going to do the half pipe thing and like really try to get good at that. Then I'm going to sit down and do this other thing. Like it's, it is a little, it's weird that it made you do it this way and didn't give you the, at least give you the option to, to like just try one. Yeah. I do think a lot of games suffer from what you're describing as like something that could be a side quest, but becomes like an unskippable mission objective winds up like ruining the flow of a game that they could have otherwise completed. But now you've introduced a new challenge to the player.
And, you know, it's not that what's funny is actually when I first played the half pipe, I thought it was impossible. It was giving me winter games vibes, but the answer is right there in the manual that you have to do the stunt that is being axed of you. This is not like a competition of you just showing off the coolest moves you can perform. It's, it's a game of Simon says where they say on screen, you know, 360 mid air jump and you have to, a 360 spin and you have to do that. And mid air jump, you have to do that exact thing as they call it out.
And once you learn that, I actually think like, yeah, it works, right? It's not winter games level broken, but it's less fun that way. It should be like, you have a limited amount of time on this half pipe. Do the craziest tricks you can do in the allotted time to score a certain amount of points to move on. Right. Because it is, yeah, it is giving you points for things. And they're not all just the, like, oh, you hit the thing we asked you for.
So here's your flat amount of points. Like it is doing that. So it shouldn't be, be telling you exactly what to do. I agree. That's all I'm saying. It's dumb. Because it also just like you crash if you don't do that. Yeah. You know, so it's not even like you can perform the other tricks. That's right. It's holding you back from doing, it would be like if in the, if in the slalom, if you didn't go through the flags, right?
The player just got shot in the face. It's, it's like a Spider-Man where you just get this like weird game over screen. If you don't do exactly. Oh no, not Spider-Man. Sorry. This is more of a rock star thing. If you don't do each Grand Theft Auto mission to the T, park in that specific spot. It's just like, sorry, you weren't supposed to park there. You got to restart from the beginning.
And it died. Yeah, you died. So I found that very annoying. And the event that I left out, the last one, the backwoods, it's like a combination of the downhill, the slalom, not really the moguls, but definitely the downhill and the slalom. It just kind of throws a bunch of things. I actually think of it very similar to in Paperboy. There was the, uh, the training course at the end, uh, after you throw all the newspapers in the, in the people's mailboxes, it just went to this, like, you know, uh, how can you survive? And it was like a little obstacle course at the end.
The weird thing about that though, is that with the training course, it was just like a way to earn extra points. It's like, if you crash, it's like you did the part of the game that was the assignment. You threw the newspapers to the people's lawns or to their, directly to their mailboxes. In this game, if you get to the backwoods section, it's not like optional bonus points. It's like, okay, now you must survive everything, everywhere, all at once.
Good movie. So in this way, it's kind of like a cross between snowboarding and wrestling, where like the backstage stuff becomes part of the show and you get like locker room fights, right? Yeah. I mean, like, why else would all these things be happening?
Right? Why are things happening? What else goes on in the backwoods that we don't know about outside of this game? Is it like the back rooms? Like the kids are saying these days?
And the backwoods of the very first level, it's not that the obstacles are super challenging. You will have to learn them. But I actually found the time limit to be super challenging of like, is there a way for you to snowboard faster? Is snowboard the verb there? Like, you know how like, you wouldn't say skateboard faster, you would say skate faster. Do you, is there a way to snow faster in this game? Maybe it's just go faster. To snow faster? Wait, snow is the verb?
I was, guys, guys, the actual question is more important. What was the actual question? Sorry, you distracted me. Is there a way to move faster in this game when time matters? Like, I kept completing with like, either no time remaining, and so you don't get to complete it, or completing with like, 0.8 seconds left on the clock. Yeah. I thought, it felt like holding forward, or I guess right in this case on the D-pad, was
making me go faster up to a maximum speed, which like you hit very quickly, and then you're just going at that speed. I could be totally, I could have totally imagined that. I think it does work that way. I'm not going to check, but yeah. I will agree, though, too, that the time limits for this game are almost, I mean, we were able to complete them, but it's way too tight for there to be like any wiggle room. Like, you cannot make a mistake.
And just another note on the actual controls of this game. Like, I thought to go faster, it would be like, almost like the more modern games where you kind of have to do like slow, like S's, you know, to get your speed going and like, to get it, not catching edge, but I don't know the parlance for snowboarding, but I thought it was going to be a lot more surfy, if you know what I'm trying to say.
Whereas it was kind of disappointing when I learned that it was really just lean forward. And I think it took a lot of the, like the kind of mechanic mastery that could have been there away from the game. Yeah. I also think that even like if the mechanics didn't change, but just something about the like the speed of the game. Like, I know, I'm sure that like if you, if you, if you measure the pixels and do the math, you're going, you're going as fast as like a snowboarder would go and you see these trees in the distance moving slowly, but you, it feels slow, doesn't it? It feels like you're trudging a little bit.
Yeah. I will say when I, before I started playing, I did, I was just curious, like, oh, what is this game? And so I looked up a YouTube video and I saw like the first like second of it. And I, I actually laughed out loud because the name, the name of the game is, has given me such a cognitive dissonance to like the, the, the speed you're going. Like heavy shredding. You're just like, yeah, yeah. And you're just like barely moving.
Barely moving. And the manual does agree that, uh, just holding in the right, uh, the, the D pad to the right is how you move faster. I guess I'm, yeah, I'm agreeing with Joe's point here that I just never felt like I was moving any faster. So thank you, Sean, for clarifying that time limits are just incredibly razor thin margins here. If you do manage to complete the trail, even the very first trail, any of the trails, uh, you are greeted by, uh, a woman, a very detailed woman, uh, on screen. Uh, she starts off just saying good.
Then it becomes great. Wow. Et cetera. As you move through them. But there's something about the, like, what is it? Is it like eighties goth look? I have no idea what this is supposed to be. Like it is, it is genuinely startling. Like it really is. Like she looks like, uh, I mean, the hair is very eighties. I appreciate that, but she's not wearing any like gear. Like the, it just like, this is what a, like a fan at back at the, uh, back at the lodge or something. Like I don't understand who she's supposed to be. Yeah. Is she just, yeah. She's just one person just like staring at you intently. Very photorealistic person with purple eyes. Yeah. Mike, can you make this image the, uh, the cover for this, for this episode? I most certainly can.
And actually I figured out where she's from. She's a background, uh, character in the last Christmas music video by Wham. Uh, that is, she is spot on. Just check out that music video if you get a chance, which is actually on a skiing trip. Uh, they go up to a mountain, a snowy mountains and everything. And everybody looks like this woman. So this is. Everybody has this vibe. This is from the Whamverse. This game is confirmed. Yeah, this is from the Whamiverse we call. Got it. Uh, and yeah, no, there's just like, I think it's just that the sprite is too close up.
Right? Like, like I get what you're saying, Sean, that she should have snow gear or something or some kind of contextual thing. But even without the context, Joe's right that it's startling because it's just so detailed and so close up and so shadowy. Like she has so much shadowy contour on her face. And it doesn't even look like she's happy to be there or like that she's happy for you. She's just very cool looking. And if you read it in a different way, uh, she might even be angry with you.
Heavy Shredding was, uh, developed by Imagineering. And they also recently did Ghostbusters 2. Not that it's important, but also like, you know, is this just something that like one guy like made this and they were like, oh, that's going to look great in the game. Like, you know, like, was it, was it a separate thing that then just got thrown into the game? Or do you think this was like a legitimate part of a design document where it was like, and then there's going to be a woman that tells you you did great? Who developed this game? You know. Imagineering.
You know, I don't think Imagineering does the whole design doc thing. Yeah, I'm going to guess not. I'm going to guess that they are the first thirsty dev in existence. Maybe they don't do any review. Maybe somebody snuck this picture in like, like that, uh, that original like adventure game or whatever. Someone snuck in the credit. Maybe this picture was not supposed to be shipped in the game. But yet it just happens after every single level. Yeah, they just, they popped it in at the end after every level and nobody played it again after that. And then, uh, then they shipped it. Yep. They wouldn't be the first dev not to play test their games.
They put an endorsement from Snowboard Magazine on the back of the box. And I didn't read that. That's not the part skiing, part skateboarding, because I don't think Snowboard Magazine wants you to think of other, uh, sporting events while you're thinking of snowboarding. Um, but the, uh, the endorsement from Snowboard Magazine was that the realism is uncanny.
Uh, is that like, I don't know. Is that the best thing? Like, shouldn't they have just said like, it's the greatest snowboarding game to ever exist? You know, like the realism is uncanny? Yeah, you're really setting up the audience for disappointment after saying that. They're a, a thinking man's snowboarding, uh, periodical. It's, uh, you have to go to, uh, shredding boards to get, um, like Luddite perspectives in writing like that, Mike.
Games like these live and die by the vibe of the game. And by that, I mean like following true to like what you imagine snowboarding to be like, right? It's, it's one thing to just be good, to be a good snowboarder in these games. Like that's a given. You're supposed to be good at the thing that you can't do in real life, but it also needs to carry a vibe with it. And other than the closeup shot of this woman and the fact that it all takes place on a snowy
mountain, do you think they captured the, like, you know, like, like, like surfing games will have the whole, like, you know, hang 10 dude and stuff like that. And it'll take place in Hawaii and there'll be like, you know, a little more like chillax, bro. Uh, does, does snowboarding have anything like that? And if so, is it represented in the game? So from what I know of snowboarders, um, they're kind of the same in that, like, it's, it's all about being chill and like, you know, you're, you're a snob bra.
Um, but I'm not seeing, again, like fashion's a big part of it. This guy's just wearing like tight black pants and a pink t-shirt. Uh, no, uh, no facial wear. Um, so it's not, it's not hitting on the fashion mark. The music, maybe, maybe. I did like the music. I did think it was pretty good. It's good music and it, it definitely is a vibe, but I don't know if like, if like snowboarders are really into rockabilly, maybe. Um, but they'd have to be for this to make sense. Um, and then, yeah, I, they, they missed an opportunity to have these like, um, these
interstitial like screenshots, not screenshots, whatever the girl thing is. If they changed that to be something more like culturally snowboardy, then I'd say so. So I don't really think they nailed the, the, the cultural aspect. Yeah. As, as someone who I did when I was younger was, uh, did extensive research on snowboarding from a movie called Johnny Tsunami. Um, yeah, I did not feel the snowboarding culture in this, like that movie portrayed, which I know could only be 100% accurate. And on the sequels and spinoff side, there weren't any other sequels or followup games, but in Europe, the game was released with a different title.
It was just called Snowboard Challenge. I guess they didn't think heavy shredding could be localized outside of the States. Uh, we own all the cool eighties, um, you know, lingo. That is the support. That's fair. Well, I, I, it just dawned on me right now why we called it heavy shredding is because when you drop your snowboard on the ground at the very beginning, the first thing I noticed, you drop your snowboard on the snow and it's like, like, I don't think snowboards make that sound, but maybe it's a very heavy snowboard.
They all make that sound. And you learned that from this game and not Johnny Tsunami? Johnny Tsunami and snowboards are very light. Yeah. That checks out. That's it. Yeah. And that will also, uh, start the checkout of this episode as we move into our final segment, the essential games list.
To go back to the, uh, closeup portrait shot of that eighties chick that's, uh, in between levels of this game, you could read it. And I think they do give her an exclamation mark of like, you could read it that she's genuinely excited for you being like, good. Wow. Great. But you could also read it as like somebody who's not really like, especially cause she's not wearing snowboard gear herself. She's not really amused by what you're doing. And she's just kind of humoring you like, oh, good.
Great. Like you did that. Great. Awesome. Whatever. And I feel like that's also what it feels like to complete these really challenging, uh, snow trails is that you are just kind of like in the gauntlet. And then as soon as you complete that, it's like, okay, just do the next one. There's no, like, there's no progression. There's no, like, not, you know, like there are different events and the order of the events and the layouts of the stages. I do get that. And it's not like every racing game just isn't just like, okay, now go race on the next track. But those tracks, like they're laid out very differently here. It's just like where the obstacles are placed is different.
It's still just like you snow from like the top left down to the bottom, right. And, and it just keeps happening. And so maybe snowboarding video games on the NES just aren't for me, but, uh, this one felt the same way of like, oh, when I, when I finished the level, I didn't give myself like a big, you know, feeling of victory. I was just kind of like, oh, neat. I beat the level, you know, same thing as the girl.
Uh, so for me, it's going to be a no, uh, on the essential games list. Joe. So I have a new theory as to what the, um, the screen with that woman on it that pops up, what that actually was. And I think that that was left over. And that is how the developers were communicating with like their team when it was like, they would, they would test the game and they would be like, this is good.
But instead they would put this sprite of the woman in there for them to see, and they were supposed to remove it. But her response was always very lackluster. Very like, good. Fine. This is fine. Fine. And I think that that is how it shipped where this game is just fine. Uh, sorry. There was a little bit of a stretch of an essential game. But that's my essential game.
Yeah. We've never given any game a fine before, but I'll make sure to put that in the notes here for this one. Sean. Yeah. This is just another illustration, I guess, uh, between this and like the board and surf one and skate or die or basically any of those that like until proven otherwise, I will remain of the opinion that the first extreme sport game worth its salt will be Tony Hawk's pro skate. And I, cause I'm not having fun with these at all.
Uh, so yeah, absolutely not essential. All right. So, uh, even when you combine skiing, skateboarding, and surfing to create a legendary new sporting event like snowboarding, it's just not enough. And I think we all kind of had probably more fun with, uh, the skiing skateboarding. The skiing one actually got on the essential games list at one point. So that's kind of crazy that, um, when you're only 33% skiing, you don't really stand a chance.
Next week we'll be playing image fight. I can't tell if that's one word or not. Uh, the box certainly looks like it's one word, but I don't think you would help. Would you say it any differently? Image. Image fight. Oh, image fight. Imagine. Oh, a magic fight. I don't think, is that how that would work? A maga fight. A maga fight and maja fight. It's a mage game. It's a, it's a wizard casting game. I mage fight. I like that one. It's a, it's actually image fight is a Pictionary brawler.
I, I, I was going to save this for that episode, but I, I do feel like it's like, it's just a really bad translation of video game. You know, it's just like, you fight with an image and you, you control the image. It's an alien describing video games.
Have a great day.
Have a great day.
