A snowboarding racing game with Mario Kart style items.

Original N64europe Review

The first time I saw screenshots of Snowboard Kids, I thought it looked like the Mariokart version of 1080° Snowboarding. And yes, I was right. This game is about the same as Mariokart 64, but now it's a snowboard game.

Snowboard Kids features a lot of options: there's Battle Race, where you have to make sure that you pass the finish first, Winners Cup, which features three different "racing" games, a Stunt Mode, a "Kill the Snowman" Mode and a Speedmode. The third race is Time Attack, which I think doesn't have to be explained. In Snowboard Kids, there are five different characters to race with, namely Slash, Nancy, Jam, Linda and Tom, they're all some sort of a cartoonish mix between an animal and a human, and they look pretty cool. Of course this game wouldn't be complete if there wasn't a possibility to blast off you opponents, and there's a wide range of "weapons" to blow the others into the sky, like Bombs, which, tadaa, blow up your enemy, Snowmen which make your opponent look like a snowman and he can't steer anymore, Barrels, if you collect this item you'll be able to drop barrels on your rival's heads, and lots, lots more. Like I said, the graphics are in a Mariokart style, and they look very good, everything is 3D. The sounds are a bit to cheery, but this game has been created for kids so that doesn't matter very much. The gameplay is superb, the controls aren't very hard to learn and that's what every game needs. Now everybody thinks this game doesn't have much challenge, but indeed, it takes you pretty long to finish first at every course.

On the overall I think this game is good for the younger Nintendoids, but older gamers should wait for 1080° Snowboarding, just because that game features more action, but this game is also worth buying. So if like Mariokart stylish games, and you are a snowboard-fan as well, what are you still doing here?? Go out and buy this game!

- by Gerben Stavast