Racing games suffered one major problem with the jump to 3D graphics. Most of them felt wooden. Controls were stiff, and many of them hardly felt realistic in physics. Some developers tried gimmicks but these were mostly changes in the vehicles and settings. The blend of extreme sports and racing was a particularly good mix in this era. You know what we didn’t have nearly enough of though? Snowmobile racers. It’s not something I thought I needed, or would even be interested in. Then Sled Storm came around. This game made me interested in the sport (for video game purposes, not in real life). Today I’ve decided to return to this game to see how well it stands the test of time. Is Sled Storm on the PS1 still worth playing? Let’s take a look.
As I’ve already mentioned this is a snowmobile racing game. Here these vehicles are referred to as ‘sleds’ though. I’m not sure if that’s another name for them in the real world, but that’s not important. Each course (and even the players themselves) are fully 3D with a behind the character viewpoint. Your simple goal is to come in first place. You have several modes of play including quick race (where you adjust the gameplay metrics to your liking), championship (where you’re competing to earn money to upgrade your vehicle), time trials (it’s basically a practice mode to improve your times), and multiplayer options for each of these. The options are fairly robust for a 32-bit racer. You have fourteen different courses, eight different characters to choose from and of course all the aforementioned game modes.
With any extreme sports game one of the most important elements is the physics engine. Now bear in mind I’ve never been on a snowmobile before so I’m not entirely sure how they feel. With that said Sled Storm feels amazing. Your vehicle reacts realistically to the various types of terrain as you zip around corners and fly off ramps. You can fall off the sled, and doing so loses you precious seconds as you not only have to respawn but also start the thing back up. EA really nailed this aspect of the game even with the very basic controls. Basically only two face buttons are used with R1/L1 being designated to leaning in either direction. The remaining shoulder buttons allow you to perform tricks. I’ll get to those later on in this review.
The characters might have goofy profile images, but I really like all of the differences between them. Each is rated differently in terms of top speed, acceleration, handling, stability and tricks. The best part of this is that they really do all feel different to use. That is, at least with the default settings. This is one of the few times I’ve been really excited to experiment with each of them to find my best fit. The only real downside, as I mentioned earlier, is the goofy graphics on the character select screen. Sled Storm is a product of it’s time, and this weird element of attitude that EA was going for just seems strange now. At least you only have to look at them briefly while making your selection.
In terms of course design I was left mostly satisfied. You have a mix of both mountain areas where you’re gliding through trees, hills and rocks as well as more circuit style courses that are man-made with lots of ramps. I was a bigger fan of the more natural settings personally. What’s interesting is that the two have very different play styles. On the mountain courses your primary goal is to find shortcuts. I found these to be fun and well executed. Most are obvious while others take a little exploring. I really enjoyed the extra risk these added often being atop small cliffs you can fall off, or down paths with snowpack and more hazards.
What I didn’t like though is how narrow each track is. I feel like Sled Storm would have been more enjoyable if these areas were opened up a bit more. The game demands a lot of sharp turns from the player, and I found myself relying on the brake more often than I would have liked. Even leaning the correct way often isn’t enough to avoid bumping into something. Each race has just four characters competing at once, but they tend to get bunched together. This is especially true when someone in the lead wrecks. I found it annoying to try and maneuver around piles of snowmobiles when this occurs.
Then we have the trick system. I’ll be honest. I’m not a fan of trick mechanics in this sort of game. It always felt like padding to me. This is no different here. You perform a variety of tricks in Sled Storm by holding the L2/R2 buttons and pressing the directional pad while mid-air. This doesn’t make the game any more fun for me. Performing these lame stunts scores you more points which grants you more money at the end of each race. You can also lose these by destroying specific elements in the environments. This includes things you’re obviously not supposed to hit like signs. The point system is kind of weird and out of place because it’s too easy to get more points from tricks than from actually winning the race.
When competing in the championships you’re given the option to upgrade your sled. This is where the money I talked about earlier comes in to play. There are several new parts to choose from that upgrade (or downgrade) different attributes of your vehicle. Unfortunately this kind of takes away from the characters’ individuality a bit. After getting a few upgrades it barely matters who you choose to race as anymore. What’s cool is that some of these aren’t directly performance based. Take for example the upgraded headlights. These just give you a better view when racing on night courses. Thankfully these enhancements are pretty cheap and don’t take long to save up for. They also make a huge difference. For example, when focusing on max speed you’ll be absolutely flying over the snow. It took me a few races to even get used to the changed handling in many cases.
As far as options go Sled Storm has a lot of them. I’ll avoid covering ground I already have so let’s focus on what’s left. Multiplayer is the big one. Sled Storm is one of the few games for the platform that uses the multitap allowing for four player competitions. I only was able to try this once but even with the noticeably worse framerate and smaller viewing area it was a lot of fun. Other options include things like volume, controls, and the like but one in particular stood out to me. It’s called catch up logic, and can be turned off. This is basically rubberbanding which is a problem that has plagued racers for decades. The fact that you can disable it is amazing. I wish more games let you do that.
Sled Storm is a very pretty game. The environments lack the typical blocky look of most PS1 games, and the sled models are highly detailed. Various terrain is well realized even with the limited capabilities of the system. The weather effects are particularly impressive. There’s a neat effect on the falling snow that almost looks like it’s bending as the camera moves. While Sled Storm does suffer from clipping and distortion I didn’t mind it in this case. The framerate stays fairly steady at thirty frames per second but I did notice occasional drops. This is especially true in multiplayer, but it’s still playable. The soundtrack is entirely licensed music. While I’m not a fan of Rob Zombie’s Dragula (the mix included here got an eye roll out of me) everything else is decent. Still, this isn’t a soundtrack I would listen to outside of the game though.
