Cubed Snowboarding

Cubed Snowboarding takes all of the grace and freedom out of the frozen extreme sport, stripping it back to a series of treacherous turns and wobbling backflips to create an arcade experience that owes as much to twitchy dodgers like Pivvot as it does to its titular inspiration.

This is an angular, mechanical take on the sport, but it manages to create a compulsive shot of gaming all the same. It rewards perseverance, demands attention, and while it might not have you enthralled for weeks, it'll have you ensnared for hours.

You play a giant-headed snowboarder sliding down an obstacle-strewn linear mountain. The slopes are made up of three lanes, and you can switch between them by tapping on the screen. Tapping on the right always moves you towards the edge with the thick blue line.

Each corner you come across has a hovering token on one of the lanes. If you don't grab it, you won't turn, and you'll fly off the edge of the mountain. There are trees, rocks, and smashable snowmen to navigate through as well.

Holding on the bottom-right of the screen rotates you backwards in the air, and holding on the bottom-left rotates you forwards. You score points for landing flips, but messing them up ends your run prematurely.

Each playthrough is split into ten increasingly difficult runs down parts of the mountain. Your ultimate aim is getting to the finish line of them all, throwing in flips and grinds at the right places to score as many points as possible.

You can tweak your board a little between runs, changing the speed it leaves corners at and the rate it spins while you flip.

The game punishes lapses of concentration with swift crashes, and you'll often find yourself cursing under your breath as you tap the wrong side of the screen and end up sliding to some unseen oblivion off the edge of the track.

Cubed Snowboarding isn't a fulfilling experience, but it does scratch a particular high-score chasing arcade itch pretty damn well. It's fun, it looks and sounds great, and while it doesn't worm its way into your subconscious, it's good for a quick blast of sliding fun.