1080° Avalanche opens with such a great video, edited really well to the music, that does an excellent job of setting your expectations for the game and getting you pumped and the game manages to live up to this intro. 1080° Avalanche is almost exactly what you want from a next gen sequel. It’s bigger, better looking, further developed, has more content, is more excessive and tops the vibes of the first game. But there are some important changes that were a bit disappointing.

After starting up 1080° Avalanche and watching the opening video, hearing the music and going through the menus I was really excited to jump in and play. It had already managed to top the first game in this regard. But as soon as I hit the snow I was disappointed. 1080° Avalanche ditches the more nuanced, challenging approach to control and feel of the previous game. Handling here is much more snappy and arcadey. You don’t have to be anywhere near as careful with steering or landing jumps. It’s harder to have a fall in this game particularly because they introduced a way to save yourself. If your character becomes unsteady time will slow down and you spin the stick to rebalance yourself and keep going. The damage meter still exists but it feels pointless now. Tricks are easier to pull off too and you really snap to grinds as well.

Fortunately 1080° Avalanche makes up for this by adding challenge and complexity in another way. The courses here are just so much ‘more’ in every way. There are so many more obstacles, including moving ones, too avoid and everything is coming at you fast as you tear your way down. The courses can also change as you go through them, making it a bit dynamic. There are more jumps, drops and things to grind. There’s more to consider and react to. You need those snappier controls to survive the constant tests the courses throw at you. Speaking of surviving they didn’t call this game 1080° Avalanche for no reason. There are some levels where you get chased down the mountain by an avalanche and it is tense. It is loud, the controller rumbles, the screen shakes so bad it’s not that easy to see, the wall of snow is right up your arse, there is snow kicked up in the air making it even harder to see and one crash will usually be enough to have you restarting.

When it comes to doing tricks it is easier but they added a timing element to build combos and if you don’t learn this then just pack it in because you won’t be setting new records without it. 1080° Avalanche also adds an extreme difficulty and you still only get three lives in match race as well. After playing through everything on offer here I can say that the changes to how it plays are a sideways move at worst and with all the other improvements any disappointment quickly passes as you’re having too much fun. Still, I would have loved to see how 1080° Snowboarding’s approach could have been further developed.

The modes on offer in 1080° Avalanche are match race, gate challenge, time trial, trick attack and multiplayer. Match race is similar to first game with groups of races separated into different difficulties but now with a special stage to cap them off. A power meter has been added and is built up by doing tricks. This rewards your efforts to look cool with the ability to knock down your opponent and recover quicker. They did only stick to one on one though; maybe the developers thought more racers on the course would be too much chaos. Gate challenge is like the contest mode of the first game in which you weave your way down through gates but it is now purely focused on speed and accuracy. It teaches you how to maintain as much speed as possible while still making precise moves. Time trial is not just a time trial. They have added 5 pieces of a coin to collect in each course. This really encourages you to discover the ins and outs of each course while searching for the pieces and earning the coins here rewards you with new boards. Trick attack is great with a massive jump, long half pipe and a packed course but I still think this mode had room for more development. Multiplayer has four player split screen and LAN play. I described 1080° Snowboarding as being an afternoon’s worth of content that you could come back to in order to improve. Here in 1080° Avalanche it’s more like three afternoon’s worth and of course you can keep coming back to this as well. It’s a great improvement but it’s still a bit too light on content.

This isn’t the only area that has been improved the presentation is a big jump too. I love the way this game looks and sounds. The style, the menus, the fonts, the music and the excess is on point. The characters are colourful and have their own strong looks. The courses are fantastic and have life in them. There is wildlife that sometimes gets in your way, and you can see and hear birds. There are things like pedestrians, cars, people skiing and a train rumbling past. On top of the avalanches you also have rock slides, cave-ins and structures collapsing. There is a variety of surfaces and nice little touches like how snow builds up on your character. It has a wonderful sense of speed with the wind and snow ripping into you. Performance is definitely better than the previous game on the Nintendo 64 too. 1080° Avalanche looks impressive and radiates fun. It’s a great game to throw on if you’re not having the best day.

This only my second time coming back to 1080° Avalanche and I should really do it more often. Yeah I still have a bit of disappointment about how 1080° Snowboarding’s approach wasn’t continued but damn this is so fun and well made. If you have a GameCube or backwards compatible Wii then consider picking this one up. At least when compared to some other GameCube games its price isn’t too painful. I wish it was more accessible though and I also want to see 1080° back again. I would love to see a new one for the Switch or maybe Switch 2 at this point.

8.3/10