 |
| | Gameplay
Sound
 | | Graphics
Value
|
| |
| | Publisher: MacSoft  Genre: Sports | | | Min OS X: 10.4 CPU: Intel RAM: 512 MB Hard Disk: 800 MB 24x CD-ROM Graphics: 800x600 @ 16-bit, 64 MB VRAM |
| |
|
Drop Point: Alaska is the latest in a long running line of games by the oddly named company, Bongfish. Drop Point is all about freedom on the slopes. There are no forced objectives, simply the compulsion to complete the challenges laid out before you, which will in turn unlock further boards and the featured “drop points” scattered across the mountain.Gameplay Upon first opening it appears stylish and slick. The user interface looks professional and navigation around the mountain isn’t too difficult. It is at the first sign of real gameplay, however, that problems start to appear. The extremely bad physics glitches stick out like a sore thumb, leading to some weird looking flips and bumps along the slope. This coming from a company that specializes in Aegia Physix-based games is a little disconcerting and makes you feel the developers rushed to get it finished. Glitches aside, learning tricks isn’t very hard, though the control system is based upon keys only, meaning you cannot use the mouse to steer, a feature which I would have appreciated.Challenges are fairly easy to understand. They come in 3 forms – Trick or Die, Highscore Challenge and Stick a Trick. Trick or Die forces you to complete tricks in order of listing in a time limit. Score one of the tricks and the time limit is increased, thus making it easier to finish. Highscore runs show the video of the best scorer in the world and encourage you to be it, causing you to “own” the run and your recording to be placed over the previous best. The last, Stick a Trick, is an open canvas. The trick is totally up to you, but it has to fit into the required trick types, i.e. a spin or grab. Bongfish states that there are over 100 challenges on the mountain, though you only have to complete 50 to unlock the final “Alaska pro Challenge”. Online action is entirely absent from this game. The fact that they decided to opt out is a little cheap, considering multiplayer is a common feature of the genre. Instead, an online leaderboard is available to match your best runs with other boarders. It’s nice (and competitive), but lacking. It must be said that Drop point: Alaska is completely different from Stoked Rider, so those of you expecting to pilot an alien UFO (as in Stoked Rider) should be aware that it is a different game. Graphics Drop Point has so-so graphics in some areas, and fairly nice visuals in others. For example, the tree models are extremely poor, but the player is nicely detailed and lifelike. Impressive renderers are used on higher end graphic cards, like depth of field (a technology used to blur objects in the distance almost like a camera) and refraction on-screen as snow turns into water on your goggles. The chances that your computer will be able to run these effects are very low, though. On my Intel iMac with 1.5GB of ram I was only able to use the medium settings provided. On the point of performance, it is worthwhile noting that this game only runs on Intel macs.
|
|
