Ski-Doo Snowmobile Challenge

Description

Valcon Games certainly has a history covered in racing (and more vaguely, driving/riding) releases. Looking at its profile page, and particularly at its PlayStation 2 catalog, you can see that it has released everything from Mountain Bike Adrenalin to Alfa Romeo and Corvette-based titles to RC Mini Chopper.

Its latest release is Ski-Doo Snowmobile Challenge, an ice-covered racer that has you skirting up and around mountain passes in a race to the finish line. The game is a solid title in terms of overall polish and quality, but it doesn't bring with it too much excitement. There's some to be found, sure, but in the day and age of games like DIRT, MotorStorm, Burnout and Pure, it feels lackluster in terms of its overall enjoyment level.

While Ski-Doo Snowmobile Challenge is a racing game first and foremost, stunts also play a large part in the overall setup. Boost can be earned by performing stunts in a race, though you can only use it when you fill the meter completely, and if you let up on the boost, you lose it entirely. I've never really liked this sort of system. It's fine when it's an option, such as how it works for a single class of cars in Burnout Paradise, but you're stuck with how it is here, unfortunately. The track design is a little too twisty to let you keep your foot on the boost for an extended period of time.

Outside of earning boost, you'll also find a handful of stunt events that you need to complete in the game. Once you get the hang of things, these events aren't overly difficult, though the actual stunt setup needed some work. Points rack up very slowly when you hold a trick, giving you little reason to do so - it's much better to toss in a second trick if you have the time than hold the first one forever, and there aren't even multipliers.