Arctic Thunder. Sounds pretty damn cool (groan). It's a skidoo game. Skidoo? Whassat? Well, it's little more than a comfy sled with an engine. Cooooool! Yeah, you'd think, but not with Arctic Thunder. I bet they're tremendous fun in real life, going really fast on snow and stuff but this game lies as far away from reality as you could think. Not just in the way that your skidoo can shoot weapons and go much faster than in real life but also in the way that I would have expected it to be just as fun if not more so than the real thing.

Gameplay:
It's incredible to me that a game can be shipped so full of bugs nowadays. Especially from a company such as Midway, whose previous releases have been of a consistently high quality. Did someone break into their offices one night, knock this up in a few hours and slyly insert it into their release schedule? No. A group of people actually sat down and coded this. They thought it would be a great idea, and they're right it would have. If it was done with any finesse, that is. The thing is, no one sets out to make a bad game, it's just something that happens along the way. The company gets to a point where they have invested too much time and resources into a game that it has to be released else lose money, bigtime. Something's better than nothing, eh? The game plays at a reasonably fast pace and continues as when you get hit by a weapon you get placed back at pretty much top speed. And cornering is easy since you maintain your speed when hitting the sides of mountains/rocks/snowdrifts etc. So just hold down accelerate and occasionally fire a weapon when you feel like it. It makes itself completely redundant by giving you precious little incentive to find out what it has to offer and no reason to want to play it for more than a few hours.

Graphics:
Graphically the game is abysmal for the X-Box. It's not the console's fault, just that the developers couldn't be bothered to spice up the visuals from the PS2 game. Which looked like a PS1 game, itself. It all moves nice enough but the colours are garish, and the menus look cheap and nasty.

Sound:
Generic explosions, music that sounds like its been written for a videogame, not a lot of interaction between riders and just enough effects to scrape through. It's not a terrible attempt but nothing special either.

Longevity:
There's not a great deal to keep you coming back for more. New characters, new levels etc. Nothing we haven't seen before and quite why on earth why you would want to unlock everything in this game eludes me. There's just no depth to the game and thus its longevity suffers as a result. Just play the first level if you have to, the rest is pretty much the same throughout.

Round Up:
I'm really disappointed with Arctic Thunder, coming from someone as great as Midway who are renowned for fun, exciting games that leave you wanting more, this is a step in the wrong direction. Hey, let's not look on the dark side, maybe it could be put to good use as an example of how not to harness the power of a next-gen console.

Pros:

• Zero
  

  Cons:
  

  • Gameplay
    
  • Graphics
    
  • Repetition
    
  • Repetition
    
  • Repetition