Review by: Bob Mandel
Published: January 26, 1999

I cover racing games for The Adrenaline Vault, and I thought I had played every conceivable type of competition — car racing and motorcycle racing, on-road and off-road racing, and even plane racing. But late this holiday season, out of the blue, a new form of racing emerged — snow racing. First Intense Entertainment released Snow Wave Avalanche, followed by Electronic Arts publishing X Games Pro Boarder and GT Interactive issuing Snowmobile Racing (the first two are snowboard games while the third is a snowmobile game). While most conventional racing games have at least one snow track, these games are distinctive in that all the racing takes place in the snow.

To be frank, I find it amazing that such an interest in snow racing has emerged. The frozen environment is relatively monotonous, with the backgrounds being a mix of whites and grays. You just cannot attain the kind of spectacular beauty on the computer when you depict snow as you can when you display other kinds of scenery. Moreover, snow racing does not permit the speed of movement that has become so addictive in the best racing games. Finally, from a marketing standpoint, I ask myself would a game like this really sell in the many locations that usually get virtually no snow at any time of the year?

It is especially unusual that Intense Entertainment was the very first to enter the fray with Snow Wave Avalanche. Prior to this release, Intense Entertainment has developed a reputation for no-nonsense realistic racing simulations such as Castrol Honda Superbike World Champions and Johnny Herbert’s Grand Prix World Champions. In sharp contrast, Snow Wave Avalanche is an arcade snowboarding game, with more than a little touch of whimsy in its graphics and sound.

It also seems odd that this game was developed for Intense Entertainment by Hammer Technologies, a Spanish company. The Spanish influence is evident not just in the music but in the fact that when the game begins its default language choice is “Español” (with the flag of Spain as the symbol). There is something incongruous here, as when I think about snowboarding, Spain is certainly not the first country to pop into my mind. However, the game is clearly tuned to the American market in one way, as most of the fictional racers you may choose from come from spots within the United States (strangely, though, one is from Hawaii, which is not exactly the snowboarding center of the country).