Shredders Review
Shredders is not just your typical run of the mill snowboarder game. It’s an open world ride that takes you by the hand to the top of the mountain. Then gives you gentle push off the edge, to a thrill ride like no other!
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Pro Riders
When you start up Shredders, you are thrusted right into the story. With each story mission you get a main objective and some optional ones. Once you have completed at least the main object, you can move on to the next mission. This opens more of the slopes and continues your journey towards the big Invitational. Each of the missions play out as tutorials to help you learn the games mechanics.
You are not alone as you head towards the invitational. To help you reach this exclusive event will be some Pro Riders that will help you hone your skills. Each Pro you meet gives you their pearls of wisdom and teaches you the moves of the sport.
During your time in the story, you are given a ‘Quick Guide’ on how to do the tricks and moves you need to pull off amazing skills on the slopes. The main controls are straight forward, with the RT used to jump and the LT to butter (landing). The Left Stick is used to control your body movement for flips with the Right Stick controlling your board. You will use the LB/RB to grab your board with your left (LB) or right (RB) hand. Of course, this will depend on what trick you want to do and as you progress, more complicated tricks are learnt
If you are ever feeling a little lazy, you can send up your drone (Y button) and fly around. Using your drone to discover new spots and drops, you can use it as a fast travel by pressing X or just to take in the sights.
Lacking Tournaments
There will be times where you get to hook yourself onto a snowmobile so that it can take you over to the next section of the mountain. This is treated like a mini race with your buddy and acts as a break away from the game. You will also be able to use the snowmobile to speed up towards jumps for bigger jumps.
While the game takes seconds to get to grips with, mastering Shredders will be something else. There are many advanced moves that you will learn throughout the story and progressing through until the end is a must. The story itself is quite tame and nothing to write home about. It should take you roughly 7 hours or so to complete, but thankfully you will have side missions to complete. To complete all these missions, you will need to master your board and learn all that Shredders has to teach.
As you continue your progression, you will also unlock new gear for your character, board and clothing. These vary in styles and colours and can be earned after you earn enough points from each of the missions you complete. While there was some household names in there, there was not a lot that appealed to me.
I felt that part of the game was lacking tournaments and trick style events and more could have been added. Hopefully this can be added later in the year.
More Riders
Shredders open world not only has you attacking the slopes solo. As you shred through the mountain, you will come across other riders. These riders will be from both the Xbox and PC platforms. You can create a private session, meet up with friends and shred. The developers have said that this mode will evolve over time and new modes will be added.
Beautiful Scenery
The open world setting is full of amazing lines, features and beautiful scenery, with the snow kicking up as your board slices through it. The team have done an exceptional job with the terrain and the world around you. Reaching a mountain top and overlooking the snowy landscape below, seeing log cabins, abandoned towns and forests.
The game looks beautiful as you blast down the slopes, the sun shining through the mountain ranges as you race through towns covered in snow. Watch as your board kicks up snow as you carve through some fresh powder! When reaching certain mountain tops, you will see snow drifts and mist envelope around them. The same happens when racing through a forest or downhill at night in a thick fog, giving the impression anything can happen.
The sounds in the game are spot on, with your board carving through the snow giving you a satisfying crunch. Hitting the board off the rails scattered about in some areas echoes as you hit off them. When it comes to the voice acting in the game, I found it at times to be slightly annoying and most of the time I would skip it. This may just be a preference of mine, but I just wanted to jump back in and get back on the board again!
Highs and Lows
Throughout my playthrough of Shredders, I experienced the highs and lows of most games in this genre. However, while the highs were a blast and kept me coming back for more, I did encounter a few issues.
There was often at times when travelling hooked up to the snowmobile that your characters hands would look off. One example is when you are being pulled along through the snow, your hands sometimes look detached from your wrists/arms. Another issue I had is when I hit the snow hard, and my body will bounce back and spin like a bottle top.
There can also be times when you become stuck in a certain area of the mountain and need to restart. I also experienced some framerate issues during play too. The issues I experienced are few and far between and there is a Day One patch. So, hopefully that should resolve a lot of these issues.
Overall
Shredders is the most fun you can have on a board, snow, iron or otherwise. There is a lot to explore in the world that FoamPunch has given us. While the story acts as more of a tutorial than anything else. It was the open world that kept me coming back, looking for bigger and wilder jumps. I did encounter one or two issues, but these didn’t ruin my enjoyment and will be ironed out with the ‘Day One’ patch.
** A review code was provided for the purpose of this review **
SSG Rating 8/10