A console-style extreme sports game on the PC? That's exactly what Supreme Snowboarding attempts to deliver.
Zy Nicholson

Dangerously fast and furious it may be, but let's get something straight: snowboarding isn't hardcore and it's not "street". If you can afford £400 boards and Alpine holidays then you're either old enough to be earning a respectable living or else you're a comfortable, middle-class kid whose well-off parents are probably skiing on the next piste while they keep an eye on you. Radical? Hardly. But that's not to detract from the sport itself, and if you've the slightest interest in 1080s, dry powder and broken limbs, Supreme Snowboarding offers all the thrills of this luxury pursuit for those of us on a considerably lower budget.

Without attempting to be a simulation, Supreme shouts with the enthusiasm of an aficionado. It opens with a very basic choice of well-animated freaky dudes and authentic kit, then proceeds to hurl you through all manner of rodeo backflips, air to fakies and 720 overhead melancholies until your fingertips feel frozen and your regional accent has moved 1,000 miles closer to Iowa.

At the same time, it retains its sense of humour and allows you to pull off some truly outrageous stunts with charged moves and a little button dexterity. No jump is too high, and you'll often find yourself cruising through touchdowns that would, in real life, present a forensic pathologist with the task of telling your butt from your elbow. Seeing a vehicle crash in a game is one thing, but seeing a human surfer smack into a rock, freewheel out and then skid on their knees for another 50 yards before friction wins out actually adds a whole new level of viscerality and identification with your gameworld alter-ego. It's certainly enough to make you overlook the disorientation that the camera can suffer when you're trying to get up again.