1080° Avalanche

Written by Matt Swider  on August 01, 2003

Hands-On Preview: The С1080' represents the number of weeks this game seems like it has been in development.

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Also emerging from the original is Gate Attack, which, for the first couple tries at least, is sure to send players weaving all over the place as their maneuvering skills are tested on slalom-style courses filled with flags. While modes like Downhill Match, Time Attack, Trick Attack and Gate Attack all made an appearance in 1080° Snowboarding, its multiplayer mode only supported two-players. Now, almost six years after the original, a four-player mode was added to Avalanche for some split-screen action on the GameCube.

Snowboarding opponents aren't the only thing to worry about in 1080°: Avalanche, which, as its name suggests, features potential avalanches that can be triggered during the game. In addition to the visual marvel each avalanche creates, rival boarders will sometimes be caught in the middle or find routes blocked off because of the sudden wave of snow. Once this happens, you should be in line for first place, meaning triggering avalanches and other environmental forms of destruction can work to your advantage as a natural tactic produced by nature.

Something that doesn't come naturally to a lot of people is snowboarding, and the controls of Avalanche mimic the real life experience in that way. It took some time for many gamers to get a grip on landing properly in the N64 original and now that a fresh set of control are in place on the GameCube, both veteran and novice players must learn the new scheme or be forced to feel nothing but snow while coming down the mountainside on their backside. The upside to enduring a lot of down-sliding beginning with these new controls is the added ability to grind, something that wasn't possible on N64.

Of course, grinding means that players must maintain balance and that awkwardly landing a trick or maneuver will sometimes result in the boarder starting to lose their balance. When this happens, simply rotating the analog stick in a specific direction will usually set things straight again. Grinding can also be performed along with many of the moves that return to the snowboarding series including grabs, flips and revolutions. Being the other half of the title, a 1080° revolution is possible, but, much like the last game, it will takes tons of practice to pull off the feat that is otherwise impossible in reality.