Price: £39.99 Players: 1-2 Widescreen: No DTS sound: No 60Hz: No Many arcade fans will be familiar with the Alpine Racer series, this being the third game and which you get to choose from eight characters including an unknown one to be unlocked later. There's a bog-standard "Cross Race", which sees you and three CPU opponents going for the finish and a slalom that's just for one, plus an "Extreme Winners Cup", in which you start small with no money and basic skis, then move on by spending your winnings to bigger and better equipment, including snowboards. Don't spend all your money though, since when you need to re-run a face through failing the first time, it'll cost several thousand dollars to go another time.

Graphically it's a reasonable game, giving you what you'd expect from the arcade but you find that it's a road we've travelled all too often and one that gets very repetitive after a while. The sound is similarly unpredictable and will garner no surprises. And then on to the gameplay, which is what will determine how much you stick with this release, but this is where things begin to go downhill (ahem), as apart from steering left and right, you feel like you have little control over your character. It's annoying the way the third-person camera cuts to a side aerial shot watching you in the air only, as you go over a steep jump, since it adds nothing to the experience and just detracts from the enjoyment and breaks your concentration as you're thinking about landing and would rather see the course in front of you. In fact, the way the camera follows you is also rather poor at times, as you leap over a jump and the camera angle looks down on you too much, rather than looking forward to the course in front, thus limiting your visibility.

It's also annoying when bumping into part of the scenery and finding you can't get straight up again, instead bouncing off other things like the ball in a pinball machine, before getting back to normal, thus wasting valuable time. And another moan - why is it in games like this where, if you collide with another character on the course, it's always you who ends up worse off while they speed along? I could say that this simply hasn't got the longevity of SSX Tricky and some would say that's to miss the point because it's an arcade game, but at least in the arcade you got a proper cabinet to shimmy left and right to and, for me, a lack of longevity brings about boredom.

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2003.