Something
unnatural is taking place at Mt. Garrick, the Area 51 of the
ski resort world, but should gamers bother to care?
Mt.
Garrick is a ski resort with a deep, dark secret. The fact
that the people who run Mt. Garrick hate snowboarders is
not a secret, however, and the mountain's regular customers
and employees show their distaste for the snowboarding community
quite strongly. Nya, a very skilled snowboarder finds herself
on a mission to liberate Mt. Garrick for her snowboarding
brethren, and at the same time uncover the secrets that
men like Chief O' Leary of the ski patrol are attempting
to hide.
Therein lays
the premise of Dark Summit, the first action-adventure
snowboarding available. The extreme sports genre in gaming
is extremely crowded, so thankfully Dark Summit does
not attempt to compete with the great series like Tony Hawk's
Pro Skater by offering similar gameplay. Rather, Dark
Summit makes pulling off tricks a small part of its
overall package, adding a storyline, albeit a cheesy one,
some unique missions and other creative elements to form
a one-of-a-kind game. Unfortunately, even with its refreshingly
different style, a number of problems keep this game from
being as fantastic as its uniqueness deserves.
Dark Summit
offers a number of different characters that the player
can choose to control in their rtackling of Mt. Garrick,
but really Nya, the arguably beautiful (at least some people
think so) female rabble-rouser, serves as the most important
person in the bunch. The rest of the gang only becomes playable
after the main part of the game is finished with Nya. Players
will immediately find themselves on the incredibly vast
Mt. Garrick, and as the game progresses better lift passes
avail themselves and unlock even more of the mountain to
exploration.
While riding
down the slopes, various challenges add variety to the game.
Usually these challenges help the player learn boarding
skills, like grabs, flips and grinds, with the promise that
all the skills will be necessary in one way or another later
in the game. Other challenges focus more on just providing
some humor, though, such as grinding a picnic table and
trashing the Chief's turkey dinner, simply to get him furious.
Generally, the gameplay comes across pretty well, often
bringing a smile to the face, and the finale to the story,
while anti-climactic, is, without a doubt, strangely amusing.
The worst part about the gameplay results from its relative
easiness. Decent gamers might need only a few hours or a
day or two to finish every mission the game has to offer.
It would be
nice to claim that Dark Summit is no visual slouch,
but the game really falls short in that area. The ski mountain's
sheer size and detail is amazing, with loads of junk like
snowmen, barrels and machinery, in the rider's way as he
boards down the hill, but bright colors and nicely designed
characters alone simply do not cut it, and that's about
all Dark Summit has going for it graphically. The
textures look sloppy, like something from an earlier generation
system. In respects to the snow, a substance one would imagine
to be high on the priority of things to make look good in
a snowboarding game, the layer of white stuff covering everything
never comes across very convincingly and instead disappoints.
At the same time, the cut-scenes appear a mix of believable
character design and lousy backgrounds, with sometimes choppy
scenes, as parts of the graphics seem to not line up properly
with one another. Add to everything else some glitchiness
and awful collision detection, where the player often ends
up halfway inside of solid objects and the game's overall
graphics prove themselves rushed and sub par.
The sound
elements in Dark Summit do a good job of pleasing
the ears. While riding down the mountain, various voices
and people will call out to you with threats and anger.
At the same time, ethereal statements such as "there
is no hidden agenda" and "the cows are all normal"
add to game's humorously serious underlying task. The soundtrack
consists of some subdued techno tracks, and one or two songs
that increase in volume and intensity when something important
is going on or about to happen. All in all, Dark Summit's
sound by no means detracts from the game. Instead, the sound
appropriately sets the game's mood and adds to enjoyment
of the player.
A
few control issues present themselves after a bit of playing.
For the most part, the simple controls perform well enough,
but a few problems exist in the areas of pulling off special
tricks and performing grabs. In the area of special tricks,
the button combinations used leave very little room for
mistake, and the player's timing needs to be quick and nearly
perfect to get the tricks started. Grabs usually involve
a directional tap of the control stick to indicate which
specific grab the player wants to pull off and then the
pressing of the X-button, however, performing these grabs
without sending Nya in a wild forward or backward flip or
a spin is nearly impossible. So, trying to catch a little
air and perform a nose or tail grab sometimes proves disastrous,
as these little jumps usually don't give enough space to
pull off a flip. Usually the boarder unceremoniously lands
on their head. Overall, the controls never seem terrible,
but a system where performing simple grabs is, well, simple,
and the process of pulling off special tricks felt more
forgiving would have garnered some appreciation in my book.
A number of
problems definitely exist in Dark Summit's overall
scheme. But thankfully, Dark Summit, with its unique
premise, nice presentation (although sometimes the text
is overly blurry), and extras such as bonus characters and
a basic two-player mode, makes up for most of faults and
provides a decent game.
Jeremy
Roerich
Trust me. The cows are not all normal.
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|
|
Graphics
|
Sound
|
Gameplay
|
Depth
|
Presentation
|
Overall
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|
5.0
|
7.0
|
8.0
|
7.0
|
8.0
|
6.5
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The
Final Word:
The ideas behind this game really hold a lot
of potential, and the finished product provides
some definite enjoyment while it lasts. Unfortunately,
the game's shortness and lame graphics drag
down a piece of
merchandise that could have been terrific.
Perhaps Radical Entertainment will take the
hint and give everybody a sequel with the
appropriate improvements.
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