Control wise and SS has it all figured out with simplicity, instead of masses of keys you just have your simple left, right, duck (forward), slow and stunt etc. set-up. It's easy to understand and very little to remember, which means that you can spend more time actually playing the game rather than thinking about what key to hit next. A Keyboard or a Game Pad would make an excellent control medium for this game.

Character movements are impressively swish; take a hard right turn and your player reaches down to the snow with his fingertips as he or she careers around the tight corner. Jump over a ramp or snow hill and they reach forward to hug the board and then flay about as they shoot back down onto the snow again. The AI on your opponents is perhaps a little overdone though, they rarely crash into each other and it's often hard to see the difference in difficulty levels (always racing ahead).

Easy mode should have slowed the opponents down, made them clumsier or something to at least give the game a more realistic level of difficulty. They do sometimes crash into each other but more often than not it's you because they appear to follow set paths rather than act intelligently to avoid such obstacles. In the end there is a deep feeling that your racing against guided rockets rather than real people. Always challenging and rewarding just because the game looks and feels so good but the AI itself is frustrating.

Look out for that.. [CRASH].. Rock.

There are 9 huge levels (three for each difficulty) and all contain lengthy courses with their own unique set of twists, turns and surprises to keep you on your toes, or should we say boards? Time is life and your always racing against the clock so do your best to avoid any kind of surface that looks rocky as it'll likely trip you up and kill any chance you might have of a win.

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