Retro|Spective 130: 1080 Snowboarding

[Neon Ignition]

History in Games:
1998 - 1080 Snowboarding
2003 - 1080 Avalanche

Overview:
As part of an era of extreme sports games from different companies this series was mostly notable for its lush visuals and that it came from Nintendo's stables themselves. Mixing tricks with racing the original game gave an initial five boarders to choose from as you carved through the powder on the companies N64 console. The sequel attempted to amp up the gameplay by amping up the scale and also reviewed solidly but never made the same mark as the first game and so like its water based sibling it also saw the series come to an end on the little purple cube.




Were you addicted to the white powder?

[Atticus]

Loved this game. So much better than Coolboarders. Just as the N64 analogue stick was perfect for carving through the waves on a jet ski, so too was it ideal for carving into the powder.

Always remember the odd player-select music too: 'Work ya body w-work ya boday ...'

[DeathAdder]

Liked the N64 game, although I didn't play it that much, as Wave Race was always my racer of choice on that console.

I haven't played the Game Cube one, even though I have it. It came as part of a job lot of games. I suspect I'd like it more than I liked Blue Storm.

[Asura]

I loved 1080; easily one of my favourite games of that generation. Comes up a lot in discussions about WaveRace but I love them both, and couldn't pick between them. On the GameCube, I seem to remember that the characters get mixed in, so Akari Haymai and Ricky Winterborn from 1080 show up in Bluestorm.

As for the original, as a kid I went through a mini-obsession with snowboarding, but I lived nowhere near access to alpine sports, with a family who had no interest in them, so it was completely out of my reach. I didn't actually finally go snowboarding until I was 23; I wasn't great at it () but I still loved it. Going to Nagano is one of my favourite memories, and I might not have pursued that were it not for 1080. I even had one of the Lamar boards from the game! (found it in a HARD-OFF in Takasaki for 600yen, though I had to resurface it).

Never did like the sequel all that much. I always found that Amped on the Xbox felt like 1080's true sequel.

Always remember the odd player-select music too: 'Work ya body w-work ya boday ...'

The music was weird.

[Neon Ignition]

I think the first game was easily my fave of the genre at the time despite people lushing over SSX. The sequel though, I prefer Wave Race: Blue Storm of the two, the sequel to this wasn't bad but it just didn't connect.