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SNOW

SNOW is a open-world winter sport simulator that places players on an enormous mountain where players pull off various tricks and high-speed maneuvers. Play with friends and complete challenges to show off your skills.

Publisher: Poppermost Productions
Playerbase: Low
Type: Winter Sports Simulator
Release Date: March 02, 2014
Pros: +Smooth gameplay. +Various mountain courses. +Large trick library. +Optional first-person camera. +Realistic sounds.
Cons: -Wonky ragdoll physics. -Requires DirectX11. -Lots of bugs.

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Overview

SNOW Overview

SNOW is an open world winter sports game that places players on an enormous mountain where they can pull off death-defying tricks and race down the slopes against other players. Customize your character with popular brand-named gear to distinguish yourself on the mountain. Jump, grind, and spin off of ramps, rails, and pipes to rack up a high score and dominate the mountain. Choose from a variety of trails, from smooth slopes to paths decorated with ramps. Or, leave the trail and swerve through the forest, but contact with a tree will send your character's rag-doll body hurdling. Master the slops and complete challenges to prove your worth.

SNOW Key Features:

  • Open-world ride down the slopes of a shared mountain, racing against, and with, other players.
  • Character customization distinguish your style with unique equipment purchases to show off your personal flare.
  • Various Events – master the slopes by completing a variety of challenges and prove your worth.
  • Ragdoll physics – every crash sends your avatar hurtling down the slopes with hilarious rag-doll physics.
  • Tricks pull off impressive tricks, whether it be grinding icy rails or twisting above a sprawling mountain forest.

SNOW Screenshots

SNOW Featured Video

SNOW - Official Early Access Trailer

Full Review

SNOW Review

By Chanel Hwang

SNOW is a winter sports game that aims to bring to life the experience of skiing, snowboarding, and riding a snowmobile. While the physics and mechanics of speed and movement are more realistic than most games, there are several factors that keep SNOW from achieving the feeling of rushing down a winter-white mountain.

Getting Started

When launching SNOW I was surprised to see how the UI looked like Windows Live Tiles. The menu is made up of clean, white squares for each option. However, the menu is buggy. It says to press Enter to accept, and ESC to cancel, but half the time pressing the appropriate key resulted in no action. When I finally stumbled into the tutorial I was aggravated. This melted away when I saw the open expanse of the mountain, with pretty graphical details. I could see the tracks left by my skis, the patterns of the snow, and realistic rocks and trees framing the paths.

The controls are easy to learn but hard to master. I think this is partly due to the difficulty of the game, which is fine, but also due to buggy mechanics. Half of the time when I wanted to turn left or right my character would end up going backwards. When I jumped I couldn't get my character to consistently bend his knees. There were times when I would slam on the "S" key to brake but nothing happened. But, the best bug moments were when two of my character would appear and I would automatically die. If you can get past the bugs there are moments where you'll pull off an amazing trick (or a ridiculous fall) that are absolutely breathtaking and epic.

Coming Down the Mountain

SNOW has four different game modes. In Free Roam players can explore the mountain, jump to different Drop Points, and practice moving around. Challenges present a list of achievements that must be accomplished within a time limit. Events are where players can complete with other players in a specific area of the game, such as Rail Jam (points scored for rail tricks) or Freeride (points scored for time and accuracy on a course). Then there is the Multiplayer mode, where players can join servers with up to 12 others to ski down the mountain, practice tricks, and watch others.

One of the best aspects of SNOW is the mountain. SNOW's main mountain, Sialia, is huge. Players can opt to start on the North or South side, and go in any direction. The mountain also boasts different areas, such as a terrain park, crazy cliffs, and various lines. Players can explore the entire mountain, but should be wary because when crashing, you must start at the last checkpoint. (Crashing in Multiplayer results in death and you turn into a tombstone).

Scoring Points and Customizing Your Character

There is a point counter in the bottom left-hand corner in all game modes. Points are scored depending on distance traveled, time, good landings, tricks, and more. Points can be taken away for restarting, dying, bad landings, and more. The points accrued allow players to level up, giving them Credits. Credits are the premium currency used to purchase gear for characters and to buy entry into special events.

The Shop offers real-world brand gear. The gear doesn't offer any stat boosters or perks other than appearance. Most of the gear comes with a hefty Credit-price-tag, but you can earn some premium currency in-game.

Some Weak Spots

The game falls short in a few areas. Multiplayer is extremely buggy, and SNOW requires more from your computer than the average game. A complaint that some people have is the wonky ragdoll character physics, especially when failing a jump—doesn't look so cool on a replay video when the flip was awesome, but then the character flops like a fish out of water.

Final Verdict – Good

With realistic speeds and physics for tricks, jumps, and turns, SNOW is on the right track to becoming a great winter sports game. Though there are definitely bugs, the dev team is active and responsive to improve the quality gameplay. The fun is only going to increase when snowboarding becomes available, so if you've got free time and winter sports is appealing to you, I would suggest giving SNOW a shot to pull off some sweet tricks or slide down the mountain for a chill time.

Screenshots

SNOW Screenshots

Videos

SNOW Videos

Links

SNOW Online Links

SNOW Official Site
SNOW Steam Page

System Requirements

SNOW System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Windows Vista 32 bit
CPU: Core 2 Duo E4600 2.4GHz or Core 2 Duo E4600 2.4GHz
Video Card: GeForce GTS 450 or Radeon HD 6770
RAM: 4 GB
Hard Disk Space: 10 GB

Recommended Requirements:

Operating System: Windows 7 64 bit
CPU: Core i3-3240 3.4GHz or Phenom II X4 40
Video Card:GeForce GTX 460 SE or Radeon HD 6870
RAM: 8 GB
Hard Disk Space: 10 GB

Music

SNOW Music & Soundtrack

Coming Soon...

Additional Info

SNOW Additional Information

Developer: Poppermost Productions
Publisher: Poppermost Productions, Sony Computer Entertainment (PS4)

Engine: CryEngine

Other Platforms: OS X, Linux, PS4

Steam Release Date: October 10, 2013
Release Date: March 02, 2014

Development History / Background:

SNOW is developed by Swedish video game developer Poppermost Productions. Founded in 2012, the studio's primary project is SNOW, and is being developed with input from professional athletes. SNOW was added to Steam as an Early Access title on October 10, 2013, and subsequently released into Closed Beta on March 02, 2014. Multiplayer was added to SNOW on November 04, 2015.