Now here’s a game you don’t see very often; a snowmobile racer. Quite an odd concept when you come to think of it but quite surely an original title, which is what today’s market is always looking for. Will Arctic Thunder set us a new type of game we all love or will all end up the same way we think of yellow snow?

Gameplay:
The idea of snowmobile racing sounds good right? Not really once you’ve had one or two plays of Arctic Thunder. There are 4 modes of single play, which are all practically the same except they offer medals or points really. The medals give you special codes for the game whilst the points allow you to upgrade characters, vehicles and tracks. Once you’ve upgraded your vehicle and character (Which doesn’t take long at all), the game just becomes simply too easy.
Playing the game is easy enough as it is as all you have to do is hold down the accelerator turn now and then and fire weapons when you have them. Even when crashing into objects you don’t slow down, which does make you seem like you’ve got a supercharged snowmobile. This does give a great speedy, adrenaline rush type feel but is unrealistic lets face it. The game has an ‘arcade’ type feel, it’s as if that’s where the game belongs as the gameplay soon becomes tiresome as you are doing the same thing in a different location practically. The multiplayer offers a 4-player split screen ‘battle’ which, like the single player game can become dull and repetitive.
Perhaps if the game had a little more thought put into it, it might have been worth playing for a little longer, but no this game should be in the arcade if you ask me.

Graphics:
The graphics are nice in the game and always keep up with fast paced action that is always going on, however we’ve seen better on Xbox for a start the snowmobiles and riders could have looked much better with elements such as reflective surfaces being used and slightly better snow effects. The environments look okay with many world landmarks such as the Whitehouse and Swiss Alps all included in the game looking nice, but once again not looking astounding. The graphics are nice and it’s not something that becomes overly noticed throughout the game, still it would’ve been nice to be just cruising by and have one or two nice features that we could stare at and think that is quite a great graphical achievement but not with Arctic Thunder, this is also shown by the in-game menus which don’t look of great quality either.

Sound:
Nothing amazing as far as the sound goes, every level has it’s own music for example the Whitehouse level has patriotic American music, which you wouldn’t find on music store shelves not by a long shot. There are no particular genres of music in the game but all the music in the game is fine for driving around the circuits. Sound effects all sound pretty good considering I’ve never heard a snowmobile before but all seems okay as far as Xbox goes.

Longevity:
At first the game seems to have plenty on offer; a large single player mode along with an interesting multiplayer mode too. But after upgrading your snowmobile completely everything becomes far too easy even the hardest of courses are easy to win. Sure the game offers you the chance to upgrade through a points system but it’s all too easily done. Overall the longetivity of this game will last even the beginner gamer a short time, not worth the money for the amount of game I would say.

Round Up:
Arctic Thunder has a nice concept and has its one or two good points but it’s not worth it, you’ll soon become bored of all the tracks and what little the game has to offer. There would only be one good point to look at the game and that would be the graphics and the short amount of gameplay that isn’t totally amazing. Only worth a rental to see how little the game has to offer, it’s not very advisable to buy this game.

Pros:

• The gameplay, initially fun
  

  Cons:
  

  • Soon becomes repetitive
    
  • It’s too easy!
    
  • Why bother it won’t last long