1080° Snowboarding - NTNDO64.com

Developer: Nintendo EAD Publisher: Nintendo

Released: April 1, 1998 Rated: E 7/10

From the days when every company needed to try its hand at an extreme sport to stay on the cutting edge of culture and technological advances, 1080 Snowboarding comes straight from the top team at Nintendo to prove the hardware’s power and the faith in the new IP. Similar in many ways to the launch-window release Wave Race 64, 1080 is a fondly-remembered and technically proficient title that the N64 could proudly boast as another top tier genre representative. But despite its critical acclaim and consistent appearances in Nintendo’s legacy programs like the Virtual Console and NSO Expansion Pack, 1080 doesn’t get much actual fanfare nowadays, for a few reasons.

Most things that keep 1080 from being celebrated as opposed to merely appreciated aren’t really its own fault, so much as they are factors of it being “of its time.” There are, however, some things about its gameplay and presentation that can seem lacking nowadays, and it seems likely that a lot of people would fire it up for about 20 minutes on their Switch before getting either tired or frustrated, and that’s not a knock on 1080 or the player, rather it is a simple fact of its age and vision. 1080 Snowboarding is a sim-style snowboarding title that offers gameplay modes based around racing and tricks. Eight total characters and nine boards offer varied combinations of stats to approach each run, and you’ll need these plus a nifty sense of skill and control to pull off a smooth run and keep your boarder moving.

The interesting thing to me about 1080 has always been that with this setup of only a few variables heading into each event, and only four unlockables (three characters and one snowboard), the mastery of the controls and mechanics is basically its own reward, and the ultimate goal of the game is simply to become good at it. It sounds obvious and isn’t the easiest to explain, but basically 1080 isn’t set out to reward you with things like cosmetics, secrets, or other gimmicks. There will be harder slopes to race on as you win races and trick contests, but the satisfaction of not falling on your ass every time your boarder tries to land off a ramp or jump is its own sense of satisfaction. It sounds simple, but 1080 Snowboarding is really anything but. Surprisingly demanding and precise in spite of only a few key controls, 1080 Snowboarding is not a pick up and play type of video game, and it’s in this way that I think it’s aged the most, through no fault of its own.

The most common comparison to 1080 is not its fellow winter sports titles on the N64, not even its PS1 competition like Coolboarders. The SSX franchise was a smash hit starting with the PS2 original and its bombastic attitude and arcade approach are still fondly remembered today. 1080 Snowboarding often feels nothing like that series at all, opting for a borderline realistic approach by comparison, and yet the pervasiveness of SSX creates such an expectation as to chase away even more potential fans who spend their first event tumbling towards the finish line more than boarding there upright. It’s a shame because without any of the other things that made 1080 special back when it was released — graphics, complexity, Tommy Hilfiger — it really does the game and the team at Nintendo EAD who clearly saw a lot in this title a huge disservice.

Continuing Legacy

1080 would only receive one sequel, 1080 Avalanche on the GameCube, developed by North American Nintendo studio Nintendo Software Technology. This team also developed Wave Race: Blue Storm, yet another parallel between the two franchises. The aforementioned SSX series massively outperformed 1080 both critically and commercially, naturally overtaking the spotlight for the snowboarding genre, no matter how much they might differ in their approach.