Snowabunga! Shredding its way to you with its epic courses, mind-blowing tricks, and cute characters comes Slopecrashers. Brought to you by solo developer Byteparrot comes this labour of love that takes you back to the era of SSX. Invite your pals to carve up these gnarly courses and launch various weapons at each other, all while trying to make the best time.

Slopecrashers is heaps of fun with friends or solo, with its epic campaign. This arcade snowboard game stars a crew of various animals set on becoming champion snowboarders. Boost down the slopes with friends, performing epic stunts and launching items at each other for the ultimate group session. Thanks to its incredible scenery, cute characters, endless customisation, and epic tricks, this game will bring you hours of fun in the campaign or online with friends, taking you back to the good old days.

The controls are super easy to learn, so you can immediately slide into the action, efficiently performing stunts and boosting down the slopes like a pro. Movement and control your tricks with the left joystick, X to boost, RT to perform a grab trick, A to jump, and use items with LT. Performing epic stunts and grinding rails grants you a boost that you can use to slide faster; there are also various items in the form of presents scattered around the map to collect and either attack competitors or protect yourself against them.

These items consist of fireworks, bees, balloons, snowmen, and rockets, to name a few. All attacking items, such as fireworks and balloons, track other players within a specific range; otherwise, you must aim them precisely to hit the target, whereas snowmen get placed directly where they land until someone runs into them, slowing them down. I indeed found balloons and bees to be the most annoying ones to get from because they launch you into the sky, and you must spam A to escape, and bees slow you down heaps. However, in saying that, this is all part of the fun. Slopecrashers reminds me of the good old Mario Kart rivalry between my friends as we hurl various items at each other, all while raging and laughing.

Picking the exemplary character is the first adventure you experience as you progress to snowboard champion. Each character has stats, snowboards, and gliders, which can give you an advantage in the race. Various customisation options for your little character include outfits, hats, glasses, and moustaches! Very stylish! Different game modes, such as battle race, time attack, and stunt show, to name a few, will give you hours upon hours of gnarly fun performing epic stunts!

One thing I will say is that you can easily fall off the map; I only mention this because, at times on various courses, you would fall off the map, and the game would keep respawning you at the bottom of the map until you respawned maybe 6 – 8 times. This took away some of the fun, but I haven’t encountered any other issues thus far.

The art style in Slopecrashers is quite spectacular for an arcade game, let alone for a solo developer. Bright, picturesque courses with many colourful items and characters provide a wonderful vibe and aid in the experience of sheer enjoyment. I thoroughly enjoyed the scenery in this game as it was fresh and unique in contrast to other games I usually play, and I had a beautiful feeling around it overall.

The soundtrack is a very notable mention. The audio of Slopecrashers provides a fun and cheerful environment while battling it out to be king of the mountain. The entertaining character sayings and the upbeat, joyful soundtrack give off fun vibes. The soundtrack is something to be experienced, and honestly, it had my friends and me grooving and jamming along, completely forgetting about our friendly little competition ourselves.

To conclude, Slopecrashers is a beautiful, picturesque game made with love from a solo developer. Bringing you back to the SSX days, this game combines fun, quirky characters, epic courses, an upbeat soundtrack and various game modes to give you something fresh and unique to jam with your pals. Slopecrashers is something you should add to your wishlist this Christmas and is sure to win over plenty of people wanting to challenge their mates and see who rage quotes first.

Written by: Larry