Not to sound too shallow, but one aspect of the title that drew me in was the lush graphics that are presented. Boarder Zone uses a variety of visual tricks to create some very beautiful and well-detailed tracks. The best lighting effects take place on the night courses, but even the nicely done shadow effects seen on daytime/sunset tracks really stand out. The overall frame rate is constant even on my somewhat modest Pentium 2/GeForce setup.

Boarder Zone has different modes of gameplay that includes the standard race, races scored on points alone, as well as recorded time trials and tournaments. Players can also choose from a unique batch of snowboarders as well as different boards that vary in performance. Between these two sets of variables there is a lot of flexibility in the players choice of style. For example I opted for the slower, but easier to control combination of boarder and board since pure speed isn’t my thing.

While the visuals are very impressive, the impression that they are a crutch for the overall playability of the tracks should not be given. Each of the nine large tracks are riddled with all sorts of sharp turns, crevices, high jumps, and fun little objects to blow into. The depth of the tracks is increased even further since snow depth was actually taken into consideration. Less traveled areas of the track have much deeper snow, which can slow down a snowboard racer considerably.

This game can be tough. Even with difficulty set at a merciful setting, real skill needs to be developed in order to win. One wrong move can often set a person back. Players need to concentrate on what area of a track gives them the most speed, and the tracks have also been designed with a few ‘short cuts’ that should appeal to the play style of the gamer that likes to improvise. The success of stunts depends on the overall speed and height of the player. Using a combination of the jump button and the d-pad (or arrows) various flips and jumps can be pulled off. Recovering from a missed stunt, however, is something that can really set a person back in the race.

When compared to other snowboarding titles, like Cool boarders on the consoles, this game probably doesn’t have quite as many stunts to pull off, but a lot of the emphasis is put on the race element. The stunt mode does cater to anyone wanting to spend more time learning to successfully pull off tricks, but for the most part speed and control are the key to ‘winning’ this game. Overall the control is actually pretty tight. I myself used Microsoft’s original Sidewinder control pad which did the job very nicely. If you consider picking up Boarder Zone I seriously suggest you get a control pad that is half way decent.

I really liked the soundtrack for Boarder Zone. A bunch of original cutting edge vocal pieces do a great job representing the atmosphere of snowboarding. Most of the songs are lively alternative songs that capture the high-energy rebellious attitude of the sport. What surprised me most about this music was not just that it fit so well, but that was actually good stuff.

There certainly is a lack of extreme sports titles for the PC; most of these are restricted to the console for some reason. This being the only Snowboarding title for the personal computer I can think of, I am glad it isn’t a bad one. Boarder Zone is a very solid sports title with enough visual pleasure to get even the biggest graphic junkies interested. Hopefully this one success will lead to the release of more titles like it in the future.