Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe's guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo's download service. Written by Sam C Gittins.

Far from being snowed under with releases we have another couple of releases to tide us over for another week, again one title of quality and another thats just lacking. Anyway enough from me and on with the games!

Available for download this week we have...

• 1080* Snowboarding
• Riot Zone

Points: 1000
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Released: 1998
System: N64

Over a decade ago there was an initial influx of games in various genres, it was a time when the next "big" genre came along and then everyone followed suit; this was especially true for the Snowboarding genre as there were games like the infamous Cool-Boarders among others that were all competing to be the best in their field.

This ruthless rivalry in competing for sales went on until a certain somewhat unexpected title crashed onto the market in an avalanche of awesomeness which quite frankly wiped out any "competition" and in many ways set a new standard. I am of course referring to the original Ten Eighty Snowboarding, this title effectively did for the Snowboarding genre what Waverace 64 did for the Watersports genre but in a very different way.

For the first time a truly realistic recreational representation of the sport was born which truly raised the bar and even set the benchmark for almost every subsequent Snowboarding sim. So the visuals may not look like much by todays high-def standards but for their time they truly were something spectacular to behold; everything from the smooth snow to the fluid animation made decent use of the hardware and really helped to create a truly believable boarder.

A range of modes are available including Championship which is the primary focus in which you rise through the ranks, unlocking greater difficulties and courses which will keep you coming back to unlock it all. Other modes range from the self explanatory Time Attack and Trick Mode to the Two-Player Versus which should be commended for it's consistency and is a decent experience worthy of a few good plays if you can find someone willing to play it against you.

Sadly this overall well-paced title is over far to quickly as once you've slalomed down the slopes and have seen everything that the game has to offer there isn't really a great deal of incentive to come back for more snow shredding bar a few blasts with a friend. Nevertheless this is still easily the finest representation of a Snowboarding game to date and for a decade in age it's still a landmark title that deserves to be experienced by even the most discerning of gamers; "boarding" games may come and go but Ten-Eighty will always remain the true benchmark.

Verdict : A brilliant boarder which broke down boundaries.

Points: 800
Publisher: Hudson
Developer: Hudson
Released: 1992
System: Turbografx

Yes it's time for yet another side-scrolling, Streets-of-Rage-style stealing, sub-standard scrapper; their truly is no way or even any point in trying to deny what this title is spawned from or tries to achieve because it's so damned obvious that it's at a clear disadvantage even before the title screen is reached. So I will sum it up in rhyme to save us all some time as this is as painful to review as reading this undoubtedly is to you.

Riot Zone, a laughable clone which takes you from zone to zone; crushing ribs, smashing hips and basically breaking bone. As either Hawk or Tony you get to play on a quest to save the day, a battalion of baddies along the way have you bashing buttons much to your dismay until the pad you'll want to break and ponder why your playing this mistake.

Visually it's clearly lacking, audibly it's just clicking and clacking in-between all the visceral hacking; levels comprised of generic texture mapping, A.I that feels weak and sapping, the team who worked on this game were clearly slacking. Redeemable features? This has none, even a two player co-op was shunned; and now enough of all these puns buy Streets of Rage, it's better and has knives and guns.

Verdict : A side scrolling shambles of a scrapper.

Thats it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!

Sam Gittins
[email protected]

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