Snow lovers and snowboarders had to endure a long drought after the boom of the 90s. During this long hiatus, we’ve seen skaters saturate themselves with a variety of skateboard games (Session, Skater XL, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater) while snowboard enthusiasts had nowhere to play. But that’s about to change, because ready for a spring that melts the snow, here’s a game that also melts the desire to slide down it. foam punch signs snowboarding simulator Shredders, coming to Xbox Series X|S and PC.
In it we slip into the role of an unknown snowboarder and youtuber who enters the fictional ski areas of together with his colleague Scotty Frozen Wood and surroundings in search of another crazy stunt. PR Lisa, from the also fictional snowboard gear company 540 Indianoticed us and, thanks to his contacts with other professionals, accelerated our career to the speed of light.
The story unfolds more than 40 missions and culminates in a major invitational event, a snowboard cross (or boardercross) race. We’ll meet real snowboard pros like Jamie Anderson, Zeb Powell, Sebbe De Buck or Marcus Kleveland, some of whom we’ve seen at the Winter Olympics, accompanied by this enchanting landscape with a cooling tower in the background. . In reality, we only hear their voices in the game as their faces are hidden behind balaclavas and goggles. In the missions they tell us their tricks and encourage us to accompany them on the slopes.
Usually, A mission consists of a main task and two optional challenges. For example: your main task could be to follow Lisa, with a “grind” over a railing and a total of over 10,000 points as an additional challenge. In reality, the main quest is usually extremely simple and there is no “star system” to unlock future missions. It is enough to complete this main challenge to be able to move on to the next mission.
Advertising:
As for the controls, which make up almost the entire gaming experience, it’s something complex. Use the left stick to control the character and use the right stick to control the snowboard. The right trigger is used to jump while the left trigger is used to arrest the fall. The LB and RB buttons are used in conjunction with the right stick to grapple. while pre-jump flips are introduced, combining the left stick with the right stick’s plank rotation. It is a system, as we say, somewhat complicated, but the missions will quickly familiarize you with this scheme. Also, sometimes a snowmobile and other elements are available to us, giving more opportunities for tricks.
Unfortunately, Foam Punch didn’t make it easy for itself no cheat list. The ones you need are already listed in advance, but only in the corresponding mission. You will therefore have to remember later that, for example, a “Japan” is made with the right stick at 7 o’clock and then the LB button pressed.
Advertising:
In general, the gameplay has a reasonable level of complexity. You need to focus on the approach before each jump and mentally prepare for each trick, plus what’s happening in the air is pretty realistic (for a pro of course). The ski area where you play is divided into seven zones, there are parks with lots of artificial kickers, an industrial area perfect for grinding, a village and of course fast descents over the trees with huge jumps.
The sights in Shredders are white, very white. The snowboard parks with the artificial kickers marked in light blue are a bit reminiscent of Mirror’s Edge and that suits the gameplay quite well for the same reasons as the parkour game. However, there’s a lot more blur here and the massive buildings look like something out of the Nintendo 64 era. However, if you’re flat out, the descent through nature is really graceful. The effects that our snowboard creates in the snow could be a little nicer, yes, but in general they achieve the touch you’d expect from a game of this type.
Needless to say, the pros featured are wearing their attire and the brands are very present in the game. During the game we unlock different pieces of equipment that we can use. Unfortunately we cannot customize your colors. Each piece of clothing or gear has a given and unchangeable color. With that, the editor ends up acting more like a billboard than a place where you can customize the protagonist to your liking. As for the brands that are popping up, Oakley and The North Face were obsolete years ago.
Advertising:
Paper shredders have one too multiplayer mode which the developers continue to cautiously refer to as “preview” as they plan to add more content in the coming months. We haven’t been able to fully test it, but when we enable it in the settings (including crossplay) it looks like there are other players on the run. It’s not yet clear whether you can play missions together or hunt for points with other players, or even compete in the only race in the game. For now, don’t expect much from this facet of the game, which brings me to another complaint: no hay ranking online, Yes, really? The missions are our best performance yet and that’s it. It’s a slightly odd decision for a game where results can mean a lot.
It’s a title with a lot of potential. I like its complex controls, which are a bit reminiscent of EA’s Skate, but it’s still more arcade than simulator. The feeling of unlimited freedom
The fact that there are no obstacles to overcome to advance in the game is a double-edged sword. It’s something that in the end it undermines the motivation to keep playing. I would have liked to grit my teeth on the optional challenges to unlock more missions. Completing challenges like these isn’t the same, and the lack of a leaderboard makes it worse.
The Shredders missions have some good ideas, there’s even the occasional Forza Horizon-style racing event (against a van in this case), but it all boils down to following other snowboarders in the end, and that takes its toll. . The others are always too slow, and often we don’t see checkpoints to orient ourselves (if we stray too far from the other snowboarder, the mission will fail). All of this is further complicated by the total lack of camera controls, as the right analog stick is centered on the board.
But the love of the developers for this sport is obvious the gameplay is not convincing. Whether multiplayer and upcoming updates improve that feeling remains to be seen, as things like an online leaderboard are said to be relatively easy to add and have a lot of potential. Shredders goes on sale this Thursday, March 17th, Game Pass users can enjoy the last days of winter without paying more.
