It's good in parts, but I'm not that impressed. Compared to older snowboarding games I've played, this just barely holds up. SSX Tricky on PS2, 1080 avalanche on Gamecube, Shaun White Snowboarding on PS3 and even the newer SSX game on XBox 360 are at least as fun as this. Apart from the online multiplayer, this doesn't really do much to top those games.

Some of the things that are disappointing about Steep:

- An online connection is required to play most of the games content... WTF, this is just stupid and a great example of why modern gaming sucks. What exactly happens when the game's servers are down? It's just a matter of time, until it's unplayable. I don't like to buy games with an expiration date. This is just unnecessary DRM with no benefit to the player and will be a major annoyance at some point in the future. Only free-roam works offline, challenges which are the meat of the game do not. This is mostly the reason why I'm giving this a thumbs down, it's inexcusable. I understand that multiplayer obviously doesn't work (without LAN or splitscreen), but why make the singleplayer challenges online only? It's just total BS. The mountainbiking game "Descenders" made by an small indie dev has working offline singleplayer, while also having online multiplayer. I bought that game three times on different platforms and regret nothing. Ubisoft could learn a lesson.
- Most courses seem kind of randomly thrown together, rather than having well designed or interesting routes to take
- Graphics look good sometimes, but it's inconsistent. You can tell that more effort went into some parts of the map and a lot less in others.
- Some of the mountains really don't look good at all, like some kind of randomly generated mess. Have the developers ever actually looked at a snowy mountain? The Icy lake also looks bad with clearly copy, pasted textures which was done in 5 minutes of dev time.
- Even on highest settings, low level of detail on distant objects and texture pop-in is quite noticable, also when you open-up the map (this is clearly a console port, isn't it?). A more stylized map without stuff constantly popping in and out would have looked better, but then again zooming in on the map is cool, I will admit.
- Tricks and controls are kind of unpredictable, doesn't feel anywhere nearly as tight as old games
- Cringe dialog by your manager/tutorial narrator who also sounds perpetually stoned, quick sample: "yo dude that was totally gnarly man, keep it up"... I got a good laugh out of some it.
- There are some challenges where the mountain "talks" to you (What exactly is your character smoking?). Mostly the mountain complains about people skiing and just being there really -> in a game about skiing. So thanks for that pseudo-environmentalist hippy guilt tripping.
- The game is often janky, it's easy to get stuck in places and annoying to get out, while clipping through objects. Old snowboarding games has some of this too, but it's no better in this.
- The textures in the backgound briefly flicker when I press start to open up the menu. It slightly bothers me, every time. This should be easily fixable, how can this still be there, did the testers ever open the menu?

The good stuff:

What's really great are the trick animations. It seems like all the development effort went into this. What's also cool are the satisfying trails your character leaves in the snow and little balls of snow rolling down the mountain. Multiplayer is pretty good, there's a score attack and racing mode, so it's definitely fun for a couple games, but gets stale pretty quick. You can also play on some maps in multiplayer that would otherwise only be accessible through the DLC. It's nice to have some variety with Snowboard, Skis, Wingsuit, Rocketsuit, Sled and Walking, but in the end I really only care about the snowboard and skis.

Conclusion:

I got this game cheap while it was on sale for 6€. That's the only time I can really recommend getting it, don't pay more. Mostly this game makes me want to go back to play the old snowboarding games I mentioned on emulators. At least I remember those being a bit better than this. The only major improvement in Steep is the online multiplayer.

It's good in parts, but I'm not that impressed. Compared to older snowboarding games I've played, this just barely holds up. SSX Tricky on PS2, 1080 avalanche on Gamecube, Shaun White Snowboarding on PS3 and even the newer SSX game on XBox 360 are at least as fun as this. Apart from the online multiplayer, this doesn't really do much to top those games. Some of the things that are disappointing about Steep: - An online connection is required to play most of the games content... WTF, this is just stupid and a great example of why modern gaming sucks. What exactly happens when the game's servers are down? It's just a matter of time, until it's unplayable. I don't like to buy games with an expiration date. This is just unnecessary DRM with no benefit to the player and will be a major annoyance at some point in the future. Only free-roam works offline, challenges which are the meat of the game do not. This is mostly the reason why I'm giving this a thumbs down, it's inexcusable. I understand that multiplayer obviously doesn't work (without LAN or splitscreen), but why make the singleplayer challenges online only? It's just total BS. The mountainbiking game "Descenders" made by an small indie dev has working offline singleplayer, while also having online multiplayer. I bought that game three times on different platforms and regret nothing. Ubisoft could learn a lesson. - Most courses seem kind of randomly thrown together, rather than having well designed or interesting routes to take - Graphics look good sometimes, but it's inconsistent. You can tell that more effort went into some parts of the map and a lot less in others. - Some of the mountains really don't look good at all, like some kind of randomly generated mess. Have the developers ever actually looked at a snowy mountain? The Icy lake also looks bad with clearly copy, pasted textures which was done in 5 minutes of dev time. - Even on highest settings, low level of detail on distant objects and texture pop-in is quite noticable, also when you open-up the map (this is clearly a console port, isn't it?). A more stylized map without stuff constantly popping in and out would have looked better, but then again zooming in on the map is cool, I will admit. - Tricks and controls are kind of unpredictable, doesn't feel anywhere nearly as tight as old games - Cringe dialog by your manager/tutorial narrator who also sounds perpetually stoned, quick sample: "yo dude that was totally gnarly man, keep it up"... I got a good laugh out of some it. - There are some challenges where the mountain "talks" to you (What exactly is your character smoking?). Mostly the mountain complains about people skiing and just being there really -> in a game about skiing. So thanks for that pseudo-environmentalist hippy guilt tripping. - The game is often janky, it's easy to get stuck in places and annoying to get out, while clipping through objects. Old snowboarding games has some of this too, but it's no better in this. - The textures in the backgound briefly flicker when I press start to open up the menu. It slightly bothers me, every time. This should be easily fixable, how can this still be there, did the testers ever open the menu? The good stuff: What's really great are the trick animations. It seems like all the development effort went into this. What's also cool are the satisfying trails your character leaves in the snow and little balls of snow rolling down the mountain. Multiplayer is pretty good, there's a score attack and racing mode, so it's definitely fun for a couple games, but gets stale pretty quick. You can also play on some maps in multiplayer that would otherwise only be accessible through the DLC. It's nice to have some variety with Snowboard, Skis, Wingsuit, Rocketsuit, Sled and Walking, but in the end I really only care about the snowboard and skis. Conclusion: I got this game cheap while it was on sale for 6€. That's the only time I can really recommend getting it, don't pay more. Mostly this game makes me want to go back to play the old snowboarding games I mentioned on emulators. At least I remember those being a bit better than this. The only major improvement in Steep is the online multiplayer.