Sledders Review on Xbox

Sledders is a realistic, physics-based snowmobile simulator.

The premise is you take on the role of an anonymous rider who is out to enjoy and manoeuvre the big open terrain. Plow through tons of fresh snow, conquer the mountains, and reach the peak faster than your friends!

The game boasts five huge open maps to explore, with steep hills, mountains, lots of trees, and open areas ready to be ridden by you, including plenty of jumps, and also water. 32 player multiplayer and lobbies are also available.

Accessibility

With regards to accessibility, the developers have added in a some options, FOV options, auto counter steer, auto guard, hotfoot toggle and a small selection of subtitle options. Audio options are basic however, so those with auditory issues may struggle.

Gameplay

As someone who has ridden snowmobiles, I was excited to hear that a physics based game was on the cards. These powerful beasts are often overlooked when it comes to any snow orientated games, so this sounded right up my alley.

The game touts itself as ‘’Freeride snowmobile simulator with real-world physics in deep-snow backcountry’’ and in fairness to it, that’s exactly what its main selling point is and potentially it’s main undoing.

The moment I jumped into the game, I knew there would be a bit of a learning curve for the mechanics of the game. But the real impact of the this didn’t really hit me till many frustrated hours later that was then eased with some online searching and practice.

From the moment you enter the home screen to the moment you choose a rider and sled and start your riding experience, you will be faced with a stark reality this game is for primarily enthusiasts. It showcase single player and multiplayer and some options regarding the rider and sled.

When entering single or multiplayer there is nothing but your own ability to explore the world around you. No activities, rewards, or objectives and goals. Its you and the world the developers created. For some this is too much choice to handle, for others this is the perfect excuse to do as you please. You spawn at predetermined locations and off you go…well… not exactly.

Controls and movement of the sleds are based on weight, snow density and leaning, to get the very best out of your riding. However I would say that the controls are somewhat counter intuitive for the average player and I would recommend turning on Auto Counter Steer to help you get to grips with the mechanics. Because of this, a lot of players will be put off from the outset and may very well go straight to refund for simply not understanding the mechanics well enough and spending time learning them.

Controlling the snowmobile will be a challenge. The left stick is for you tilt or leaning and the right stick is controlling the skies of your snowmobile. On their own they do very little in turning your sled, it’s a combination that will make the sled go where you want. In reality you need to train yourself to remember that a left turn = pushing both joysticks in, and a right turn = pushing both joysticks out.  I think the option of button remapping maybe a better solution here as it was a nightmare to turn whilst aim my thumb sticks inwards.

The biggest issue by far though for me, is the left joystick sensitivity is way too high and a light push either side can get you to fishtail in a matter of milliseconds. Whilst the right joystick seems to do little even at full turn. This is nothing like real life, as turning your skies with no leanings provide some minor turning, which I found in game, due to the sensitivity seems to do almost nothing.

The off trail Snow itself also seems a little over dramatic with your snowmobile digging in more times than I liked just by simply pushing the throttle a little. It sometimes felt as If I was riding through quick sand the moment any slowdown happened and would instantly dig me knee deep into a pit of snow. That’s not saying this doesn’t happen in deep snow, but not as quick as portrayed in the game, and does need adjusting by 5 or 10%.

This is stark contrast to when you are on the predetermined trails, as that feels like there is little to no traction at all with a slight turn almost ready to push you into a 180. Now I know the enthusiasts will counter with, ahh you just don’t understand the difference between a long base track and short base tracks.

For those that don’t know, be aware that Long tracks are much more suitable for off-trail with short based better for on trail. Well at least it should be, but I felt little meaningful difference in either in the machines I used.

When it comes to the digging in issue, I’ve been stuck in deep snow before and a little shaking and leaning often got me out. No such luck in game, but it does compensate with the ability to respawn within a short distance in any direction you like which is a great help when in the wooded areas.

Wrong foot either side is perfect for riding uphill sideways, but learning that ability takes a huge amount of time and most will simply spawn hop there way up a mountain as its actually quicker in getting to the location you want. All of this knowledge will be through experimentation or going online to find out what the buttons do. A lot of the problems I faced could easily be resolved by full tutorials instead of the 2 second on screen prompts available, as this would easily be the ideal solution for new players in understanding what they need to do and how to do it.

Now this may come off as there was no fun to be had, and that’s not true. The exploration of going anywhere is fun and learning the mechanics will be very enjoyable for some. Multiplayer is where its at though, with you and up to 32 others find the right hill or bump to try and do some crazy flip, which is not easy in any shape or form. Riding with others as they try to find the perfect mound to do tricks or jumping over fallen riders was a true blast. When I finally managed to do a back flip with my machine, it felt so good. My recommendation would be try out the retro sleds first, as these seem to be less twitchy that the more modern versions.

This is a hard game to master and is left to the player to work out what everything does and how to enjoy it. Once the controls clicked, I really started to enjoy what is on offer and understand what the game is about. For the more casual players this maybe hell, but for snowmobile enthusiasts, this will be heaven!

Graphics

Visually this game looks gorgeous with the 5 huge arenas to explore hiding unique locations, tough terrain and opportunities to really do some crazy stunts available. The vastness of the areas really do sell this games open world nature that showcases some of the most gorgeous terrain available.

Exploration is hugely key, and whilst spawn points at the beginning is limited you can place a spawn or way point at any location allowing you to come back to any location you have discovered. One thing I really would have loved though is the ability to keep those spawn and way points in multiplayer as it is in single player mode when you quit out of the map and go back in. This would help the feel of progressing in terms of exploring every square inch of the maps landscape with your team. There is some exploration achievements like getting to the top of a mountain, which does showcase the beauty of the landscape.

The game also has fully licensed snowmobile brands on board, so if you know your sleds, they are here ready and waiting for you. Customization is also equally important and you can tailor the sleds, and the rider to how you want with the tools they give you. It took me a second to notice the options to customise the colours but once you find it, you will soon be tweaking to your hearts content.

The camera is good, with the ability to change weather, time of day and distance from the rider on the go. I did have some issues though when hill climbing that it locked way too close to the back of rider, even changing it to be at a distance, the camera still limited my view to see where to go when trying to climb the mountains. I never could figure out how to change that, even though there were some pop-ups telling me how.

Overall framerate and stability was superb in all of my gameplay, but I did spot the odd tearing in the distance, when riding the trails. Overall, nothing that can’t be patched later on.

Sound

When it comes to music in this game, there isn’t any. Which is a shame as id like to listen to some calming melodies as I make my way through the deep snow. Instead the developers have opted for the snowmobiles engines to do all the heavy lifting. That would be fine, but again I think they need to update it to make it more dynamic as a 2-stroke engine sounds identical to a 4-stroke one. Most riders, and even bikers will know this isn’t the case and does need an update if the only thing you hear is the roar of your ride.

Environmental sounds in terms of wildlife are also none, or at least nothing I could pick up and is a shame as id like to hear the sounds of something other than the crunch of the snow. Now the snow sound is good under the vehicle, but again it would be nice to hear the sound of snow dropping from the trees etc.

My recommendation here would be a good quality soundbar pick up the roar of the engine to it’s fullest.

Verdict

This leads me onto the rating of the game:-
Now I rate games in order of, avoid, on sale, great purchase and must own. My rating for Sledders is a ‘’On Sale’’.

For the lovers of snowmobiles, I would say this is a ‘’Great Purchase’’ game, but I also have to take into account the general public as well, hence the on sale recommendation. Also for me the price is a bit high for the content available. I understand the logic of making your own fun, but you could still add objectives, goals and tutorials, as a option. This bare bones style will put a lot of gamers off, and really pushes the game for enthusiasts only.

The game is currently priced on Xbox at £29.24 or approx. $35 and depending on skill and patience would give you about 50+ hours worth of gameplay to understand the games mechanics and explore the maps thoroughly. There is multiplayer so you can add on as many hours as you want there, but overall the amount of enjoyment you will get out of this is Soley based on you.

For what it is, the game does most things really well and is fun to play, however, there is some elements that do need improvements and to be fair to the small team of developers, they are listening and putting out regular updates. If the developers want more players aside from the specific snow mobile enthusiasts though, they are going to need to make some compromises and add in more content and help hints regarding controls.