Stoked

[charlesr]

(jump to post #6 for me liking it!) It's a back-country snowboarding game. As such, the views and scenery is pretty cool and the entire mountain streams smoothly (although some weird popup stuff every now and then) and you are instantly back at the helidrop if you want, with all your snow trails still intact. Nice.

The controls attempt to bring the same depth that Skate did to skateboarding, with twin sticks for spin/ollie and triggers for grabs. Triggers also do prewind with the arms. It sort of succeeds.

BUT.

Turning is so sluggish. In powder you can turn on a sixpence if you have the skills. Perhaps I'm doing something wrong, but it seems to take an age to make a turn while the rider leans in all too slowly. I wanted to be able to flick from turn to turn and see an arc of snow. Perhaps I need a better board, but this is almost putting me off playing it any more.

I tried adjusting my stance angles, but it didn't seem to make any difference.

Off to read a FAQ I reckon.

[MonkeySteve]

Another false dawn

What I will say is that the first few boards in Shaun White (PS3/360 iteration) made the handling seem sluggish but it picked up later on when you could buy better gear. Sadly, the game was still a bit pants.

Hopefully this will pick up, until then it's back to Amped 3/1080/Shaun White Wii

[charlesr]

Played some more of this over the weekend. My initial fears about lack of turning speed have been somewhat confused. Sometimes you can turn very quickly and others it's slow. I must be being dim, but I can't really figure it out yet. Certainly going faster helps. I think it might also be a combo of snow conditions and steepness.

Anyway, enjoyed it much more once getting a pace on. Haven't bothered learning any tricks yet, and various grabs seem to become available as you progress which means I'm limited in style at the mo - weird choice.

In terms of fun, it's very much a snowboard simulation - not technically, but route-wise i.e. "down there? or down here?" Much like real off-piste, you spend a fair amount of time with no idea where you are or what's going to be over the next crest (especially if there hasn't been much snow since last time you took the route!). Unlike real boarding, you can just chuck yourself off, safe in the knowledge you can retry if it's rock

I still can't see this being much more than average, but I'll carry on for a bit and actually play the game how it was intended i.e. progression - at the mo, it's just fun ripping down the mountain.

[charlesr]

Just read the IGN review:
"Stoked is one of those rare experiences that starts off feeling shallow and boring and progresses nicely into a more free-flowing game.... ....Keep in mind that I was playing the same challenges for around six hours until more were unlocked, but those that have the patience should be pleased with Stoked's depth. It took me about five hours to unlock the challenge types, but once I did Stoked instantly became more enjoyable. It's too bad that riders are essentially directionless when the game starts."

This certainly gives me hope. Although since I'm not bothering with any of the challenges yet, I have a long way to go.

[charlesr]

This is an ulitimately slow grower. I'm really nailing the landings now and carrying some top speed meaning I can get more air more often, thus keeping the multiplier high. Picking the challenges off one by one is dead slow, but now that I know what I'm doing, it's much more fun.

There are some horrible bits of scenery that throw you even though they look rideable.

[charlesr]

OK, so I'm the only person in the UK playing this (legitimately) but I'm now totally hooked.

It started off in averageville and it's now in maximum awesomeness central. The flow is immense. The feeling of riding is like no other - it's by no means perfect, but that whole trailing the hand in the snow, the crunch when you reach the hardpack, the metal on rock grind, the butters, the rails (actually I know nothing about rails - I'm too old to learn that stuff), and the carving through the powder is so soulful. I can really see what they were aiming for here and I've reached snowboarding nirvana.

Similar to skate, you really have to nail it perfectly to even do a simple nosegrind rather than land a boardslide instead and the joy comes from just landing simple tricks.

You can turn quickly. I just wasn't going quickly enough It just took me ages to figure out the nuances of the controls and the surfaces and how the steepness affects the turns.

If you want to retry, you can be back to the top instantly and your snowtrails are still there. Pretty amazing on a mountain of this scale (some are bigger than others). It's going to take ages to know your way around and there are loads more mountains to unlock.

Anyway, lots of joy for this. Should have gone to bed an hour ago.

Sorry for the misleading first impressions, although it's not really my fault - game structure is weird. What it does do though is force you to mess around rather than actually following the game path. I imagine many would be put off, but stick with it for a few hours.

I have now done 40/60 initial challenges, so hopefully will unlock the more exciting challenges soon.

[monsieurblack]

thanks for your impressions charles, it does sound good

still waiting to get my hands on this...don't suppose you've heard word of any uk/european release yet have you? although since you've got your hands on it i doubt looking for a release here has been top of you list

glad to hear you're getting on ok with it. by the sounds of things the gameplay mechanics may sit pretty well with me as i do enjoy the just getting in and not having too much of a strict structure to follow. i'm happy to feel like i'm progressing by personally improving as opposed to checking of specific goals/challenges...might be a time thing for me

oh...and still jealous of you having a copy

[charlesr]

Ok, on to the sponsorship challenges now. You really need to learn the terrain and get a feel for which lines will give the best chance of big jumps and retaining speed.

I read a review where he said it took him 10 hours to reach these challenges, but I reckon I've played 4 and I'm not even very good at it. Much like in Skate, it does take a while to figure out how to maximse scores at spots, including tricking on the way up to the main feature to boost the mulitplier before hitting it, but you really don't need to do any of this to scrape through the first 66 challenges (my four hours worth, including faffing around just enjoying the view ). It's hard, but practice does indeed make you better.

Love it.

[charlesr]

I have been given a camera. Bit of a late lunch today, so I took some photos, both of me and of the scenery. Sorry about the quality - was just aiming my real camera at the game's scrapbook.

Some of the areas are enormous and anywhere you can see, you can go. You can get the helicopter to drop you off wherever too.

[charlesr]

And another.

[charlesr]

Unlocked the helicopter license. Can now fly around to any drop point I fancy which is fun. View from the chopper is cool too.

I've been having immense fun just carving around the mountains for hours on end, with just the odd trick here and there. What a rush. Hope this comes out in Euro land.

[charlesr]

This just awesome. I've cleaned up in all the competitions now.

I've been spending a while powering my "hucker" bonuses. I was doing a mixture of huck and style which meant that I wasn't really getting anywhere because the bonuses for each cancel the others out. So I went down the huck route (lots of spins, flips and grabs as opposed to style which is slow and controlled graceful tricks), so I'm now able to spin and flip faster and change from grab to grab faster.

After this much time with it, I can really appreciate the different snow types. When it starts snowing, everything slows down, but on a crisp sunny morning before the sun has risen over the mountain and the surface has crystalised/hardened, it's icy and super fast and scary. I can spend a couple of hours just riding down the slopes mucking around rather than doing any challenges. Shame that many reviewers didn't stick with this long enough to figure its beauty. Stoked.

[charlesr]

Oh yeah, and this is coming to Europe in September

[charlesr]

What's worrying is that in-game, you think "Ok, this is getting unrealistic now" and then you watch things like the latest trailer for Neverland and you realise that there are people out there doing all this stuff for real...

[Fat_Bob]

Thanks for keeping the comments coming. Having to look at my board in it's bag everyday is both depressing but exciting at the same time?!? Sounds like this could be the perfect way to spend some time before the new season cometh.

Maybe a UK publisher might pick it up in time. I remember it not being multi-region right?