I know I can’t compare the two, but I played Big Mountain just days after sampling SSX on the PS2. I was struck by two things: A) how far we’ve come in the graphics department and B) how little next generation consoles change how games are played. Where’s the innovation? A snowboard game is a snowboard game. There’s not much you can do with the medium to charge it up a whole lot (I guess you could give your snowboarder an Uzi and have him shoot up ninjas on the slope). In this day of THPS we’ve come to expect a little more from our extreme sports games, and Big Mountain doesn’t deliver.

Southpeak Interactive attempts to set themselves apart from all of the other snowboarding games out there by adding a ski mode. The only justification for this seems to be a desire to milk as much play time out of the initial three tracks as possible. To open up the fourth track you must come in first on all three tracks on both skis and a snowboard. If there is any actual difference in how the skis and snowboards handle, it is minimal. Even though the sports are very different, they feel almost identical. I was particularly frustrated by the ski poles. They serve no function other than to decorate the racer. In real life Snowboarders are pretty much at the mercy of the slope and gravity, but the skier’s use of poles should give a slight advantage when trying to pick up momentum. The only difference between the two modes lies in what tricks they perform when they make jumps. Again, it’s a cosmetic issue, because you use the same button combos to execute the jumps.

You start the game with access to three tracks and three race modes for each track: free race, slalom, and giant slalom. You get to know each of these tracks pretty well, because you’re forced to go down each of them a minimum of six times (three times on skis and three times on the snowboard). Your reward is a fourth track and then mirrored tracks. As you race you can acquire coolness points based on how good you look making your jumps. These coolness points unlock new boards and outfits. There are six characters "of wildly varying skill levels to choose from." The only replay value comes from a two player mode that is as uninspired as anything else in this game.

I have yet to make it down a slope without at least one of the other opponents running into me from behind. The computer players are more concerned with knocking you down than with actually winning the race. There is little you can do to avoid your opponents. They tailgate so closely that you can’t slow down without getting intimate. If this had only happened once or twice I might forgive it, but it has happened so often that I can’t help thinking that it is a little deliberate on the part of the programmers.

The graphics have a decidedly first generation feel. With all of the developments on the N64 that we’ve seen on Zelda and Perfect Dark to have a game that so blatantly underachieves in the visual department is inexcusable. It’s not that the graphics are all that bad, but they should be better.