Snowboard Hero

If there's one thing games do better than any other medium – and that includes television, films and even books – it's planting someone in a situation they probably wouldn't usually find themselves in. Shooting World War II Germans, taking to the wheel of a racing car – these are not things that most of us do from day to day or, for that matter, ever think we'll have the opportunity to do. Snowboarding is most certainly on my list, mainly because I'm pretty sure that I'd lose a limb or two if I had a go in real life.

In fact, I'm now fairly certain. If real-world snowboarding is half as tough as Fishlabs' Snowboard Hero, then I'd be in serious trouble on the slopes. For a good few runs I spent a large portion of my time with my face a foot deep in the white stuff. Thank the Alpine gods for my mobile, that's all I'll say. And thank those deities for Snowboard Hero, for managing to tick those sought-after boxes of being as testing as it is entertaining, as accessible as it is tough – rare qualities indeed.

It helps too that Snowboard Hero looks pretty amazing, almost taking 3D depiction to a new level on mobile. The sense of speed that grips you when you kick off really adds to the experience, not to mention the feeling of vertigo that's brought on by the ground literally disappearing from below your feet when you soar off the end of a jump.

And while Snowboard Hero does look the part, it isn't a purely superficial attempt at snowboarding. No, this is damn good fun, too. As is usual in boarding titles, play revolves around mid-air tricks, with the aim being to build up enough speed to leap into the sky, grabbing your board or performing a loop as you go. Successful (and even unsuccessful) attempts build up a boost bar that, correspondingly, you can use to give you greater airtime to pull off yet further tricks – sometimes more than one in a single leap, if you're particularly adept.

The courses themselves come with plenty of interactive elements, such as rails to grind down and roofs to leap off, all ensuring that each trip down the slope becomes a personalised adventure. Your goals each time also change. Snowboard Hero's career mode essentially pits your talents against those of three other characters, each of whom has their own metaphorical hurdles that they task you with clearing.

These are often solitary acts, such as performing tricks, beating a time trial or travelling through gates. As the game progresses, though, you'll frequently be asked to combine such challenges, resulting in a task where you have to come first in a race as well as performing tricks, or passing through gates. And this is all fairly early on in the game.

If such requirements were made en masse in any other context it might be one test too far, but Snowboard Hero is just so gripping that replaying a level isn't ever an ordeal. With the game awarding bronze, silver and gold stars for each performance, there is even reason to go back to trials you've already 'completed' to try and perfect them. Especially when you consider that moving onto the next challenger requires you to have a set number of each particular star in the bank.

I suspect most folk won't need much of an excuse to keep plugging away on their boards, however. Snowboard Hero is a joy to play and, while any kind of follow-up might want to offer up a greater number of challengers, you'd be hard pressed to find much wrong here, even if ending up bum-over-head in the snow becomes your signature move. Suffice to say, I've already perfected that one.