Dark Summit puts a new twist on an otherwise-overdone genre: mission-based action on a snowboard. Despite this unique premise, Dark Summit sadly fails in every category. Immediately, you’ll notice the horrendous visuals as your sorry-looking boarder rides bland, colorless slopes. Character animation is a joke, while the sense of speed is nonexistent. Even the overly long courses don’t have a whole lot of graphical detail. Unfortunately, if your eyes survive, your ears will certainly be hurting as you play: Threatening voices from enemies and self-affirmation comments are some samples from the lame, pointless soundtrack. The gameplay could be improved, too. Meaningless objectives scattered throughout the entire mountain make your ride down only more boring. Performing basic stunts, however, is a cinch. But the bizarre button combinations that are required to do outlandish aerial tricks can be troublesome due to slow button response. The only saving grace to this miserable experience is that there are far better snowboarding games to buy for the PS2, like SSX Tricky and Cool Boarders 2001.
