A snowboarding racing game for N64.

Original N64europe review

Some people have been giving Twisted Edge less than stellar reviews in comparison to 1080, but personally I got more fun out of Twisted Edge than 1080 ever gave me. Since this game will most often be compared to 1080 by other sites, I too will be talking about how these two games compare.

The trick system in Twisted Edge is done extremely well. Doing the tricks feels natural instead of the strange button combos that make no sense in 1080. The stick movement matches the tricks good and it makes tricks flow seamlessly into the game. You can also easily do many combinations of different tricks in the air. And you get points and a speed boost for doing them too.

The game does take skill to beat it totally. While you can go through the main tracks and still come in first place overall, it takes a lot of practice to come in first in every single track. In the harder levels you really need to learn to use the tricks and shortcuts in order to come in first. But once you learn to do the tracks well and get enough skill to be able to play the game good you will be able to come in first in all races without too much trouble.

The tracks are totally awesome in Twisted Edge. While you're going along what feels like flattened mountains much of the time in 1080, in Twisted Edge you get to fly down very steep mountains most all the way through the whole game. This makes it feel more realistic than 1080 in that respect and far more fun. The tracks themselves look drawn well and have clever shortcuts in them, the design was done in a very neat manner. There are different types of snow on the tracks that affect your speed along with ice and frozen rivers and such which all look pretty cool.

The sound in the game is excellent for the most part. The music is better than most any N64 game, even if practicing all day I wouldn't get tired of the great music in this game. The sound effects themselves are also good. The crunching of the snow sounds very real as do the other noises you end up hearing in the game. The one thing that detracts from the sound and gets very annoying is the announcer talking. While you can turn him off, you won't get to hear him announce the tricks you do that way. In wanting to hear the names of my tricks and when they succeed I wanted to keep the voice on, and I got very sick of hearing the voice of that guy. Not only does he talk very stupidly (They tried to make what they thought Snowboarders would talk like for the announcer, but I've never heard a single Snowboarder talk anything like that and I've been around and seen lots of them), but his voice itself is pretty annoying. They needed an option to turn off his comments he makes (Such as making fun of you for being in last when you very first start the race even though you just barely left the gate and are in the process of flying by everyone else), while leaving the announcing of the trick names on still.

There are multiple fun modes in the game to use. There's the basic practice mode of course which is nothing extra special. The competition mode has you racing against three people instead of just one such in 1080, and racing against these three people adds a lot more fun and excitement to the game. The extra trick mode adds a lot more fun and play value to the game too. You have to race a series of a bunch of tracks while doing big tricks to earn your way to the next trick track, and nothing in 1080 can compare to this for doing tricks as such. The two player mode is functional, as in 1080 you just race each other in the game though. I like it much better in games when you get to race the competition races together with your friends instead of just one on one racing, but it's better than 1080 due to the fun of the tracks in racing your friends.

Overall I found the gameplay in Twisted Edge to be more fun than 1080 was. You do slow down quite a bit if you crash and are on some of the straight paths, but you can speed up again pretty quickly once you learn to play the game with skill by doing the tricks. While the first boarder and board combinations you get don't turn as easy as 1080, they feel more realistic at the speeds they go for their turns and you get used to it fast. Also as you earn new features to use you'll get some really good handling boards and players. Even though the tricks are easier to do than 1080 the game itself is harder to master than 1080. It takes a while to master Twisted Edge and go through everything you can do in the game and so it has far more gameplay time than 1080. Even if it didn't take a while to master it you'd still get more play time out of Twisted Edge as you do the many variations on the different tracks and try to earn all the extras in the game. The players do float further in the air in this game than 1080, but I find this to add to the fun of the game. It's the only thing to the game that's less realistic than the many unrealistic things that 1080 has except for this in Twisted Edge actually adds to the fun. You get a lot more airtime to do the cool tricks in the game by flying through the air further, in this game big jumps are appreciated and so is the air time you get (Since the tricks help you so much and are so fun to do in this game). If you had to buy either 1080 or Twisted Edge, I'd pick Twisted Edge definitely without a second thought. With the gameplay value that this game gets you, it's a good buy.

- by MoT