[typing]
Extreme Wintersports...
Even though Head Games made a whole bunch of utter trash over their short time on Planet Earth,
this one managed to stand out as one of the trashiest,
largely in terms of its abysmal performance
and lack of any compelling gameplay whatsoever.
But believe it or not, there's more to this dysfunctional family, and here's the proof:
Snow Wave Avalance,
once again developed by Hammer Technologies,
but *this* time it's published by Intense Racing Into Reality®!
At least this 1998 American release I have right here is!
Otherwise, it was released as "Snowboard Racer" in the UK and various parts of Europe,
as "Tignes Snow Wave" in France,
and rereleased as "Tech Deck Snowboarding" in the US in the year 2000.
Seeing as some of these came out *before* Extreme Wintersports,
calling this a "sequel" isn't exactly true.
It's actually the original game that Extreme Wintersports was based on in the first place,
although it may as well be a sequel for reasons you'll see soon enough.
And, yes, Snow Wave Avalanche here also remains sealed for the better part of two decades
with no signs of tampering.
Inside the box, you get some things – including:
A CD in a sleeve,
one INTENSE registration card
and a technical troubleshooting supplement page,
and the manual, which looks more impressive on the outside than it is actually on the inside.
It's just a bunch of black-and-white text –
more than anyone needs – but I applaud the effort!
Starting the game up, and already *this* is an improvement over Extreme Wintersports.
Unlike that, this is installed and starts up perfectly with no problem on each machine I tried it on!
Huh!
After a few static logos, you're provided a language selection menu and a spinning skateboard
that changes patterns to match the flag of each country chosen.
This feature alone is an incredible work of art compared to the entirety of Extreme Wintersports,
and I grow more confused.
After this, the game proceeds to play a demo in the background, and some music off the CD –
– and *this* time around, it's an actual musical composition, with vocals and everything!
["Nothing in the World" by Matamala plays; ska music]
♪ I would rather jump from the Empire State / Like a superman ♪
And the game demo in the background is even running decently!
What the heck is going on?!
This is the *earlier* game!
How is this so much better than Extreme Dickholesports
and we haven't even gotten to the main game yet?
The unexpected quality increase continues
with a menu filled with legitimate gameplay options!
The options menu is also a *real* options menu this time,
letting you change details, volumes,
and even listening to the soundtrack, featuring music by the band Matamala.
It even includes a text file on the CD so you can read the lyrics while listening!
And what nice lyrics in a game rated for all ages...
Anyway, once you've selected a gameplay mode, you select a surfer.
And even though it contains several of the same models as Extreme Wintersports,
it also gives them names, stats, additional skins and an animated 3D preview.
And WHAAAT?! You can actually select an opponent, too?
Yep!
Here you actually have the option to not only play against the timer,
but against your own ghost recording or a gaggle of AI opponents.
Actual competition in a sports game! Imagine that!
Finally, there's the gameplay itself!
Aaaand... it's alright, I guess...
It's about the same.
I mean, it's still an improvement, seeing as it no longer runs like month-old butt,
but even with the better frame rate and control response time, it's still noting special.
You race downhill against the timer, yourself or artificial racers,
and along the way, you can perform stunts and tricks if you want to,
which in some modes it's not important, but in others it is.
The controls are still annoyingly convoluted for pulling off said stunts and tricks,
but at least it's a bit easier here with the game running as it should.
Heck, I was actually able to make some neat-looking stuff happen – TWICE –
and I didn't feel absolutely dead inside afterward.
Still, it gets repetitious pretty quickly,
seeing as there are like three tracks in the whole game,
and even with varying stats, the snowboarders all feel basically the same.
And while the Extreme Tour mode provides *some* structure to the races,
there's nothing to unlock along the way, as far as I could tell.
And whenever you don't win a race, ALL your progress so far is lost
and you have to start over.
Still, I can't help but admire Snow Wave Avalanche
because *this* is downright competent, almost.
It's still not exactly fun,
and it still calls you a loser when you fail,
but it works, dang it!
And like it's quote-unquote "successor,"
it doesn't glitch out every five seconds
and make a slide projector look like a next-generation gaming powerhouse.
Plus, there's no nonsensical branding and totally useless pro shop area
that does nothing but get in the way.
And like I said, it has a soundtrack!
It's not exactly my style of music, but, I mean, it's not bad!
Pretty much the *only* thing that Extreme Wintersports has over this
is the inclusion of skiing and snowmobiling,
but that's not saying much, seeing as those were the modes
that played the worst and glitched out the most.
The question is how did Head Games take a mediocre snowboarding game like *this*
and somehow manage to make it even worse,
and turn into one of the most awful winter sports games in existence?
Well I have a theory.
And that is that Head Games was one of the single worst game companies
to have unfortunately ever existed.
You see, Snow Wave Avalanche
was one of the earlier titles from the newly formed Hammer Technologies,
based out of Madrid, Spain.
This was a group of ambitious programmers and artists
from Digital Dreams Multimedia
and NoriaWorks Entertainment
who previously made games like Jurassic War
and Speed Haste.
With years of experience under their belt,
Hammer Technologies created the DIV Games Studio,
a programming language and game creation system meant to help simplify the process
of creating games utilizing the latest 3D graphics and sound capabilities.
The first title created to show off what it could do was Tie Break Tennis '98
followed up shortly by Snow Wave Avalanche,
both of which the developers were vocally quite proud of
and hoped they would help spawn a resurgence in new game development
in their home country of Spain.
However...
Enter Head Games Publishing,
the lowest of low-budget arms of Activision,
who at the time was still pretty new on the scene
and were content making unofficial Quake add-on packs.
But then, with games like Cabela's Sportsman's Challenge,
Remington Top Shot
and Zebco Pro Fishing,
they discovered the lucrative world of sponsored content and branded video games.
Combined with a distribution deal with stores like Walmart and Kmart,
these games sold incredibly well due to the low cost and brand recognition.
And even if the gameplay wasn't up to snuff, who really cared?
Head Games started snapping up licenses left and right
and would cut corners any way they could in order to get a game out as quickly as possible,
sometimes as little as a couple of months.
And as fate would have it, there was the fresh-faced Hammer Technologies
vying for distribution deals for their new Spanish games.
So Head Games ended up paying for the rights to rerelease and rebrand their work
turning their tennis game into Extreme Tennis,
and their snowboarding game into Extreme Wintersports.
But while Extreme Tennis made the transition more or less unscathed,
Extreme Wintersports, heh,
was a total bastardization of Snow Wave Avalanche.
Once Head Games haphazardly tossed out the original menus
and replaced them with worse ones to include Arctic Cat and K2 branding,
and slapped some snowmobile and skier models on top of the snowboarders,
then thew in a bunch of crappy full motion video
to complete the package and fill out the rest of the CD,
what you're left with is a game that barely functions and runs like garbage.
They took a game that was pretty okay
and then, in the least amount of time possible,
restructured it to be an advertisement for their sponsors.
And I'm guessing they got rid of things like the AI opponents and extra modes
because their piece of junk snowmobilers and skiers
didn't play well together with the rest of it.
Which is evidenced by how *broken* this stuff is in Extreme Wintersports
when it comes to collision detection and overall control over your movement.
Man, I already *really* disliked Head Games before this,
but seeing what they did to Snow Wave Avalanche here is just abysmal.
And don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly offended or anything,
since it wasn't a particularly good game to begin with.
But the fact that they found a game that actually kinda worked
and yet still managed to take a hammer to it,
and smash out *any* remaining competent design or personality,
is just astonishing.
What a pile of snowballs!
[lumbering orchestral music]
And if you enjoyed this episode of LGR,
perhaps you'd like to see mine on Extreme Wintersports.
It's a bunch o' junk.
There's also plenty of other videos on the channel,
as well as new ones coming out every Monday and Friday,
so stay tuned if you'd like.
And as always, thank you very much for watching.