Gaming Target - GameCube: Dark Summit

Written by Ilan Mejer on April 02, 2002

Full Review: УDo you have what it takes to explore this vast terrain and expose the conspiracy at the summit?Ф ~ Dark Summit game case

Radical Entertainment is ambitious. Dark summit is an almost unreal attempt to cross over-the-top snowboarding gameplay and a mission-based action/adventure type of game. The whole package is akin to something out of a James Bond flick. Holding everything together is a rather lame story involving the military, a secret at the summit of Mt. Garrick, and a government conspiracy. Initially, you must take the role of Naya, a very un-pretty female snowboarder who resents being limited, and consequently, being told to vacate the mountain. You are up against the tyrannical Chief O'Leary, and must avoid his goons, disarm his bombs, and generally make Mt. Garrick safe for snow-fiends everywhere.

As Naya, you start by being granted access only to the initial course. Throughout the game, your goals are two-fold, to successfully pull off tricks and combinations of tricks, which net you Equipment Points, and complete course-specific mission goals which reward you with Lift Points. Equipment points unlock new outfits and snowboards. The Lift Points grant you access to other courses. Interestingly enough, the entire game is one mountain and each course is a separate section of Mt. Garrick. This comes into play because you can occasionally find a short cut or path that will take you to an area of the mountain that is considered part of a previous course. Throughout the courses, you are directed to little metallic structures that emit a colored light from a mounted antenna. These structures, or communication booths, allow you to learn about specific missions and it is your task to either accept or decline them. As you complete the missions, these communication booths grant you access to additional missions, until you have completed all of the given missions in that booth, whereupon the booth will deactivate and cease to emit colored beams of light.

The more complex and difficult the mission, the more Lift Points you stand to gain. The missions from these booths also help to act as a tutorial in the first course, as they are rather simple and teach you the basics of the controls, gameplay mechanics, and Dark Summit's trick system. The missions quickly become more difficult, as they start to incorporate multiple goals, or become two-part in nature. For example, one of the more complex missions may ask you to pull of a complex, 8 trick combo that must include jibs as well as aerial board tricks or complete 10 separate combos within a certain distance. Another mission requires that you seek out and knock down a particular skier that has been tormenting you. As it turns out, once you knock him down, his sister begins to chase you throughout part of the mountain, and to complete the mission you must entirely avoid getting knocked down by her! The game also has areas that automatically trigger important missions, such as defusing the five bombs scattered around Mt. Garrick.

While Lift Points are based upon completion of pre-scripted missions, Equipment Points are completely up to you. As you replay various courses, your opportunities to trick and combo approach infinity. Only your skill in the trick and combo system will limit how fast you unlock new costumes and boards. Additionally, sprinkled throughout the courses are money and trick symbols, which upon being collected, award you with bonus Equipment Points and special tricks, respectively. Dark Summit's trick system is similar in design to SSX Tricky's, just not nearly as well thought out or relevant. Flips, somersaults, spins, and rotations are accomplished in air by hitting the corresponding direction on the D Pad or tilting the control stick appropriately, and each of the main face buttons on the GameCube controller correlate to a different type of trick. Unfortunately, unlike SSX Tricky, you cannot УbufferФ tricks before the ollie, all motions must be executed in real time. Additionally, the R shoulder trigger will tweak any aerial tricks, adding a few more Equipment Points to the total combo award. The Special Tricks are also executed in air by simply inputting a predetermined sequence of A, B, X, and Y button presses. For the most part, these Special Tricks are nothing more than combos that you can put together yourself. They utterly lack imagination and personality, unlike SSX Tricky's signature Uber tricks.

The game is not at all displeasing to look at or listen too. Nevertheless, it is not as clean as SSX Tricky, by any measure. The backgrounds are more organic and varied than EA's premiere snowboarding title, and the game actually runs at a more consistent framerate. The textures on the snow, while not always realistic, are still more pleasing in Dark Summit than in SSX Tricky. However, while the framerate is mostly solid, the game's physics are completely off, and the animations of the characters completely lacking in personality and realism. SSX Tricky just looks much better in motion, and you feel every dip and swell of the snow, every frantic leap, rushing flip and trick, and every jarring landing. You simply do not get that same kind of exhilaration in Dark Summit. Furthermore, the game actually runs slower than SSX Tricky. It has a more consistent framerate, true, but the developers opted for a slower running game, and taking into consideration the significantly longer courses, you have a game that can quickly become repetitive when you are tracking down that one last communication booth you have missed. The character models and texture graphics are adequate, but you cannot help but be remind that Dark Summit is a Playstation 2 port. Surprisingly, the game runs best on the GameCube despite pulling off more graphical effects than even the improved Xbox port. The sound effects in Dark Summit are quite nice as well. Even the voice acting is generally of a high quality. My only significant gripe about the voices is that of Naya herself, but thankfully, she is usually quiet. The narration is solid, and the commentary of passing characters is humorous and sufficiently varied. The music is extremely moody, and quite appropriate. I definitely prefer the tunes in Dark Summit to those of SSX Tricky. All in all, Dark Summit is a pleasant enough package in the stimulus department.