Horatio Goes Snowboarding Review

Horatio Goes Snowboarding is an arcade-inspired and very simplistic virtual snowboarding experience that’s straightforward(ish). Each downhill race is randomly generated to keep things interesting every time you play, and obstacles get increasingly tricky as you progress. Slalom through the poles and rack up the points.

After you boot up the game, for some reason, you need to play a clone of Frogger by avoiding traffic to reach the board store. Successfully crossing streets earns you money. Get hit and you lose 100$ in medical expenses all the while being thrown back at the beginning. Why have this in a *snowboarding* game is beyond me.

Once you got your board, cross a few more streets without getting hit to reach the chopper that will bring you to the top of the mountain and things go downhill from here (metaphorically and legit). Instead of the traditional behind-the-rider type of camera, it’s in front of you so you can see yourself coming down the hill. It is completely jarring and fully counterintuitive.

Aside from the obviously unnecessary Frogger-like sequence, the downhill racing controls really poorly. It’s difficult to put into words, but it feels like walking drunk somehow. Snowboarding games require tight and responsive controls in order to move around easily and avoid obstacles. This does not. Controls are a crucial part of *any* game so if you fail that, you might want to just cancel your project.

The game does offer a decent cutesy visual aesthetic. Horatio looks like a clown; although I’ll have to admit that being in a situation where hills are randomly generated will give you a chance to experience different races if you can tolerate going through traffic every time you fail. The soundtrack is as boring and generic as you’d expect.

While it may be tempting to pick up Horatio Goes Snowboarding to fill that snowboarding void, absolutely do not waste your money on this. It controls poorly, the traffic sequence brings nothing to the game and there’s very limited gameplay value/replay aside from randomly generated hills. For barely a few bucks more, you can buy a much more complete and solid snowboarding experience in SSX 3. Don’t waste your time and money on this.