Stoked takes this to the next level – there are no snowparks, no pistes, no hidden snowmen to collect and no time trials. This is pure backcountry riding, with only the mountains, the weather and gravity to contend with. In fact, a lot of the variety comes from the effect the weather has on the terrain, along with the impact of time-of-day. If it has been sunny for a couple of days, some surfaces previously covered in snow will now have exposed rock, meaning almost certain hospitalisation, but come back later after a snowfall and they will be covered in snow, meaning a whole new set of jumps and drops to explore. Although beware, it’s still rock with snow on, so hard turns can see you slipping if the snow isn’t deep enough.
Game-time travels a lot faster than real-time, so if you play on the same slope for a while, eventually the sun will set and the immediate sunrise will see crisp, sparkling, crystallised snow that is super fast, but less grippy, whereas deep powder during a snow-storm slows you down as you’d expect. It provides a nifty level of immersion and this is the first game where carving and powder-surfing really feel and look like they should.
The graphics aren’t mind-blowing, but instead you get a view to infinity. If you can see somewhere, you can ride it. To start with, the helicopter drop points are restricted to a few on each mountain, but later you can fly the helicopters to wherever you want to drop, which is a cool feature. Also, the trails your board leaves in the snow persist for ages, so when you next come down, you’ll see a few previous trails, showing exactly what path was ridden before. It’s interesting to see trails stopping and reappearing where the rider has gone airborne. As well as being aesthetically pleasing, it’s also very useful when performing set tasks, to optimise approach to the drop or the rail, or for chasing the pack in an online mode.
Unlike Skate, where riding too far from your chosen marker-point resulted in a short load-time to return, resetting to the top of the mountain or to your marker in Stoked is nigh on instantaneous. This makes repeat riding of mountain sections an absolute dream – if only all games could be this fluid.
Very occasionally, the physics break down and impossibly tight turns at high speed occur without warning, or ridges that seem covered in enough snow kick you off, but in the main, the world is solid and predictable. Animation through the turns is graceful and believable – after the nuances of the controls and handling have been learnt, just riding down the various mountains becomes a joy in itself. Snowboarding is one of those sports that, unless you are fortunate, you cannot just leap outside and do it for real, so a videogame alternative does make a lot of sense.
Controls are on the twin-sticks, Skate-style, and work a treat. Push forward to ollie, pull back a while and then forward to ollie higher. Triggers on the flat twist the torso to prepare for spins and, in the air, apply 1- or 2-handed grabs. Pushing the sticks a little bit gives styled grabs and slow controlled spins/flips, whereas pushing them to the limit gives hucked versions, i.e. get as many rotations and grabs in as possible without worrying about looking good. Sticking to one or other of these methods is essential, since repeat usage brings powered-up skills in that area, but they cancel each other out if you try and mix them. This can be slightly annoying if you do a few in a row by accident of the wrong type and lose your latest bonus, be it increased flip-speed or new tricks.
Once you have understood how to move around the mountains and look good while doing it, there are various challenges dotted around. This is where Stoked will put people off – right at the start! 66 simple challenges await before anything more exciting happens, such as sponsor offers and competitions. The initial challenges consist solely of doing a couple of specific tricks or achieving a set trick-score using your imagination. They are short, but not easy for beginners and some of them are tough for those with seasoned slope-skills. This is unfortunate indeed because most people are going to be put off due to the sheer amount of time it takes, especially while learning the skills at the same time. We implore you to hang on in there though – it’s well worth the effort and time invested if you like this sort of game.
After those initial challenges, unlocks start to open the game up, both in terms of mountains available and challenges, which start to focus more on flowing from spot to spot or tougher chains of tricks on more interesting terrain. Here’s where landing every trick just right and lining up just so for the next nose slide or back-flip means it all slots into place and makes sense. To keep you in the zone, the accompanying music is both varied and unusual, in that it strays from the usual White Zombie and Co. and provides a controversially eclectic mix of lesser known tracks from a large array of genres. You’ll either love this or hate it, but you can switch genres on and off in the play-lists.
There is a fair amount of character and kit customisation, even down to stance separation distance – this doesn't appear to make any difference to the physics, though. The sponsorship is all from real brands and advertising is everywhere in the menus and presentation, but in-game the only real nod to advertising is when trying to take over the mountain by beating the online leader-boards for your chosen sponsor. Sponsors ask you to jump ship throughout as you excel, but the choice is yours to go or stay loyal.
Once you feel the urge to get online, the options are wide open. If standing around taking photos of other riders sounds like your (stalking) bag, then go for it. People will be happy to perform. Fortunately, you can paddle around on the snow (equivalent to getting off and walking) to get the right spots. Or you can ignore everyone and just carry on with the single player challenges, but with other riders hanging around. Or, you can send out general challenge-invites, which people who aren't in the middle of something may or may not accept.
Challenges are ingenious, although they are all simultaneous, so you don't get to view people taking turns to ace spots like in Skate, which is a shame. For example, 'Ground is lava' requires you to remain airborne or your board goes on fire! Grinding reduces burn, butters pause it until you can find a drop or a grind. 'Trick 'til you drop' asks gradually higher and higher trick scores within time limits – if you fall over it's instant out, so there’s a tight balance between pulling off just the right level of risk to meet the target in the time limit Vs. not landing it at all – all too easy to misjudge in the heat of the action. The only race mode is online – hit all the gates down the entire mountain – do a few tricks along the way to give more time. This is hard, but very good. T.R.I.C.K. (like SKATE) and a few others fill out the roster.
In addition, there's an "everyone teleport to me" option. So suddenly 8 people are ripping it down the mountain together, flipping off stuff. You can follow all their trails if you fall over and need to catch up. Weird stuff, because this is what snowboarding with friends is all about and it captures it in a game successfully.
Stoked is very slow to get going, but stick with it and you’ll find a true gem. The flow is immense. The feeling of riding is like no other – it's by no means perfect, but trailing your hand in the snow, the crunch when you reach the hardpack, the metal on rock grind, the butters, the rails, and the gliding through powder is so soulful that it can be enjoyed for hours without actually progressing through the game. Snowboarding nirvana, as long as you are prepared to put the time in.