Mark McMorris Infinite Air

For a few years in the early 2000s, it felt like virtual snowboarding was going to be the next big extreme sport. Games like SSX and Amped managed to make an impact, and the stage was set for an avalanche of copycats. But the clones never showed up. Sure, we saw the occasional snowboarding game vie for attention, but there was never that big push to send gamers back to the slopes.

Sixteen years after SSX first conquered the mountain, it's starting to look like the snowboarding genre may be getting another chance. Ubisoft, for example, has its own open world snowboarding game coming out in December called Steep. There's also SNOW, a free-to-play 'boarder that recently hit consoles. And then there's Mark McMorris Infinite Air, a brand new simulation that trades in flash for realism with mixed results.

Named after the 22-year-old Olympic medalist, this is a fairly straight forward extreme sports game where the emphasis is on completing challenges and customizing the mountain. Instead of being over-the-top like SSX, Infinite Air is more grounded and hopes you'll stick with it long enough to pull off the many challenging moves.

Although you are free to explore the mountain range at pretty much any time, Infinite Air has a thing about locking you into smaller, streamlined events. The game's main single-player mode consists of a couple dozen different stages, each with a new set of jumps and ramps to trick off, as well as five challenges you'll need to complete if you want to unlock the more advanced stages.

Fans of the snowboarding genre will immediately recognize most of the events, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. We get some fun long jump challenges, tense one-on-one contests against the pros and even the popular half-pipe. Many of the events are simple obstacle courses, giving the customizable character plenty of chances to rack up big points with the huge jumps and downed tree limbs. There's a nice mix of events to play through, and you'll want to replay the stages multiple times until you complete all of the challenges.

Click For the Full Picture Archive

This focus on bite-sized events also carries over into the more social parts of Infinite Air. Instead of just exploring the open world mountain range, we're actually able to customize the slopes and create our own events. This opens up the game in a big way, giving you an opportunity to take on everybody else's stages and upload your own. There are even daily challenges to contend with. Those who get sucked into the world of Infinite Air will definitely find an almost overwhelming amount of content to tackle.

The problem is the way the game handles. While I appreciate how much thought you have to put into perfect timing, I had a rough time with the finicky tricks. The issue is usually related to timing, since it gives you a ridiculously small window in which to land most of the advanced tricks. The timing is so tricky that I found myself purposely holding back, opting for easier points instead of risking a perfect run.

And I didn't just have a problem with landing, but also launching the tricks. My inability to pull off even simple tricks surprised me, especially given my long history with snowboarding games. What should have been intuitive has been made needlessly complicated thanks to the limited controls. Just as one example, Infinite Air only takes advantage of two of the shoulder buttons, which makes remembering the dozens of tricks a real chore. The whole game is like that, just a few revisions away from being a great snowboarding game.

Click For the Full Picture Archive

These issues seem minor early on, but will really try your patience the further you get into the campaign. Most of the best content is locked behind frustrating challenges, many of which require an amount of precision that is out of this game's league. I spent a lot of time wishing the characters were a bit more responsive, constantly afraid when jumping into a flip trick. Even after hours of practice, it always felt like Infinite Air was more about dumb luck than actual skill.

Much like the rest of the game, the visuals start out strong and get progressively worse over time. You start to notice just how similar all of the stages look and how you're just tricking off the same objects every time. You begin to see the terrible pop-ins and noticeable frame rate problems. None of this ruins the experience, but you'll see these technical issues more the longer you play.

With an emphasis on creating custom levels, there's a lot I like about Mark McMorris Infinite Air. Creating your own event is easy and it's by far the best part of this game. The problem is that the whole thing is undone by frustrating gameplay and repetitive visuals. It's an okay snowboarder that could have been great.