Snow – Preview
Snow is an upcoming skiing simulator, from Swedish developer, Poppermost Productions currently on Steam Early-Access.
Coming as no surprise,Snow revolves around winter sports, and more specifically in its current iteration, skiing (although there is talk of snowboarding being added in due time, however, as of writing, it’s not in-game). One could argue that this has been done before in the past, but there’s more to this game than meets the eye. What makes Snow different than any other game of its kind is that it allows you to do that within 8 square kilometers of nothing but pure mountain.
The game is slightly limited in its current iteration but that is to be understood, especially considering it’s in an early Alpha-stage. You’re given a choice of a spawn point and after that, you’re left to your own devices as far where it is you’re going or how you’re getting there. There’s not many things to do currently, so it’s considered to be mostly a sandbox experience; it is in essence, very much playable, and it can be pleasurable at times but this could easily vary from person to person.
There’s a certain element of skill involved in playing the game so you do get a feeling of growth as you play more and more. There are aerial tricks to master and trying to get that score meter to it’s highest while executing a perfect drop does become addicting in its own right.The controls do feel slightly clunky at times, especially if you’re using a mouse and a keyboard; it’s becoming a bit of a staple to say this in regards to PC gaming but a gamepad might be a good option here.
There is definitely a good game to be found here, but it’s up to the developers to find a way to bring it forth.If you do choose to play the game at this point in time, you should be prepared for a series of problems which could be attributed to the early stage of the game’s development. Whether these will consist or get better with time, is a subject that is left to one’s digression.
There is currently no sound, so more often than not you’ll be keen on putting some audio yourself to serve as a backdrop and there is a great host of graphical problems that often rear their ugly head; glitchly obstacles, pop-in issues, odd animations and flickering graphics being some of them. There are some camera issues as well, especially if you end up falling down (which you’ll be doing a lot of, trust me).
Furthermore there might be an issue with you being able to run the game properly. After several tries of trying to make it run on my desktop machine ( I was faced with numerous crashes and hang-ups, there might be an issue with ATI cards) and mucking about in the forums I had to resort to loading it up on my laptop. The experience itself was rather smooth afterwards however; the game had a smooth FPS rate which is surprising considering the beauty of some of the vistas that stretch before you. The game does run on Crytek’s engine after all, so that much was expected from the get go. When the game does work properly, you won’t be left wanting from a graphical standpoint.
On this, there is really no arguing. You’ll be hard pressed to find a game in this genre with better looking graphics. The snow itself feels natural and environments have been modeled with care; you can easily find yourself getting lost in the landscape that is around you at any given time.
Although currently there’s an entry price for access to the game, Poppermost Productions have mentioned that they plan for Snow to be a free-to-play game upon release. If you choose to be a founder and currently support the game’s development there are little gifts in store for you in terms of new clothing as well as new events. Poppermost have promised to add new content in the future, such as an actual multiplayer experience, new stages for you to play in (currently there’s only the one, big as it might be ) and even expand the game to include snowboarding.
Conclusion
Although there is a good argument for the game being flawed in its current stage, there is most definitely a good game beneath all the bugs and the glitches that surround it. Time will tell if the developers will create a masterpiece or a flop, but considering it is going to be free-to-play, there’s nothing lost from trying it on release.With promises of constant updates and quality content, there is nothing to stop Snow from being a great game, provided the developers can sort out all the issues currently plaguing the alpha. I for one, look forward to see what they ‘re going to come up with in the following months!
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