Anyone coming from SSX or Amped should realise that Avalanche is primarily a time-trial game and does a good job of emulating real snowboarding. It's about riding down the mountain and feeling the snow moving around underneath the board. It's about coping with small changes in snow texture and surface irregularities. It's about carving down the slope as smoothly and quickly as possible. Having said that, tricks are available for playing in the snow-park, half-pipe or flexing off the air-make ramp. Successfully landing tricks mid-race will max-out a power meter that allows quick recovery from a fall or a fierce knock down of an opponent racer in multiplayer mode (split screen or four player LAN), or one of the computer riders (compensating somewhat for their extremely dodgy elastic-band “AI”) in Match-race. The tricks can be linked together if performed at the right time and a slo-mo effect extends the life of the combos once in a natural rhythm. The Trick-attack mode lets you try your hand at tricks down the normal runs, but the lack of complexity limits the fun, especially when compared to the over-the-top SSX style. A slalom-style Gate Challenge provides some extra interest and novelty boards to unlock, but is too easy to provide long term excitement. No - if anything, it’s the Time-attack mode that will bring you back to Avalanche.

Only one of the four main boards each character owns is made available from the off. The initial boards are fairly basic and slow, and seem even slower on the novice slopes you are forced to start on. This compounds the initial feeling that this new 1080 has lost its way. However, unlock the hard and expert courses by winning Match-race and things start to slot into place on the faster, steeper pistes. Playing through the solo Time Trial courses reveals more of the game’s strengths. There are coins lying around the courses in the time-trial mode which unlock faster boards with improved handling, and also help to point out alternative routes. Once most of the coins are collected, the best boards are available, and returning down the runs on these acquisitions shows what Avalanche is really about. What earlier seemed like slow turn due to unresponsive controls, is now necessary just to stay on track whilst careering down the mountain at breakneck speed. The screen blurs and shakes, while the point of view changes until it is almost a first person perspective, with the rider becoming semi-transparent.

The Dolby Pro Logic II surround sound fires-out the screeching of the board edging in, scrabbling for grip during an off camber turn on ice, or the crunch off the deep-pack snow as the rider frantically kicks the back end out, leaning back trying to tighten up the end of the turn to avoid a full-boulder-interface situation. The top of a cliff disappears behind and you drop into space, doubling in speed, desperately trying to tip the front of your board down so that it lands flat against the downslope. Not a hint of slowdown anywhere, the mostly functional and occasionally beautiful graphics race past without giving you much of a chance to enjoy the view. Whereas the original 1080 was all about getting the board angle and rider direction correct during every surface change and smoothly carving down the mountain, 1080: Avalanche is all about high speed thrills. The sensation of speed is more similar to the Saturn’s excellently fast Steep Slope Sliders than anything else.

You are no longer slapped down to the snow for the tiniest misdemeanour, which is a boon to players new to the 1080 experience. Now, as long as the board is flat against the snow, you can even land with a board almost sideways to the direction of travel without falling. However, if the board is not flat against the slope on landing, your rider goes off-balance, slows down, and a quick twirl of the stick is needed to get back on track. At first this seems a bit too forgiving, instead of forcing you to learn better rider control, but in a Time Trial, the time spent wobbling about adds significantly to the race time and might ruin a healthy run. You soon learn to land as accurately as possible and, even then, is still way harder to land than in SSX. Different types of snow affect speed and grip perfectly, with deep powder slowing you down almost instantly. The rider animation whilst turning tight on steep powder runs is perfect, trying to keep the nose of the board up to stop it driving under the snow. The L-trigger digital click is held to keep the rider in a tuck to go faster – at first a bit annoying to hold all the way in, but quickly becoming second nature. After a jump, pressing it again bends the legs to absorb the landing and maintain speed. Pulling back on the analogue stick puts the anchors on in a very convincing manner, often taking a while to scrub off speed, depending on the terrain.

The hectic nature of the high speed game bias is reinforced by scripted sections, with hazards like skiers, snowmobiles, Deer, falling boulders and runaway cars all trying to spoil the day. This extra non-player activity on the mountain is a welcome move. On top of this there are avalanche levels which, especially the first few times, get the heart pounding with excitement as you get swept away under a torrent of snow and rocks.

For some, the experience may be short lived, due to the short courses, different handling style and inability to live up to the huge player expectations. However, give it all time to snap into place and you will reap the rewards. If you get your head round the fact that Avalanche is trying to do its own thing whilst still keeping to the spirit of N64 1080, it gives constant thrills and a slightly new slant on the snowboarding genre that will be returned to time and again until each course is rinsed.