Review: StokEd

Mike Bantick
Monday, 26 October 2009 09:08

Entertainment

Graphically StokEd is pretty good.  Though there is a lot of white on screen, each mountain carries a unique character and is littered with plenty of interesting runs and obstacles that can distract you enough from the challenges to just free ski down the mountain. 

If it has recently snowed, much of this powder will stick to your clothes if you come a cropper, which is a nice effect, though the snow depth and trail feel, which is more related to the physics engine, can be a bit samey throughout the game.  One day it will be nice to experience a ‘snow’ based game that captures the nuances of icy snow over powder as well as packed over variable depth snow.  I guess this is why we are still yet to see a game based around surfing, once those elements of nature are thrown in the mix it becomes difficult for coders to produce a life like experience over the hard concrete jungle used by skateboarders.

The snowboarder him/her self is reasonably well presented, with body movement ‘tells’ providing enough feedback to allow game-play moves to be executed on time.  Other skiers that populate the slopes are either non-existent, or a throwback to a previous generation of graphical prowess.

While you wince at the all too often bone crunching moments your on screen boarder will suffer from, from the comfort of your living room StokEd will provide a great choice of obscure indy rock and other background music pumping from the TV speakers.

All of this is configurable from your ‘mobile phone’, and from this interface you can access the most rudimentary of ‘grab bibles’ that show the basic moves, if this was more extensive,  showing brief examples of the moves presented in the tutorial, or a least a glossary of snowboarding terms, all would be well.


Extra bits such as the unlockable Absinthe Films are exhilarating and greatly enhance the atmosphere Bongfish is trying to create.  Multiplayer populates the runs with up to eight players partaking in races and other modes including Ground Lava which requires boarders to spend as much time in the air as possible.

While it is the core of the game, avoiding challenges and free-wheeling down the mountain will provide the most fun new players can have with StokEd.  For those well-versed in snowboarding will find a mostly solid replication of their hobby, but I imagine that for most (especially those heading into winter in the north) fans will play this game and immediately want to head up to the real snow.

5 Grinds out of 10