Feature By

Dale Weir

When a new console launches in America, it's potential for success can be measured by the representation of sports titles available at or near its launch. For all the talk of games like Tekken Tag Tournament and Ridge Racer V, industry analysts have been quick to acknowledge that Sony will need professional sports titles to help make its PlayStation 2 console appealing to the masses. One need only look at Sega's Dreamcast launch to see that it owed a lot of its success to its excellent sports franchise.

Apparently, most PlayStation 2 game developers and publishers have caught on because from the looks of the latest release schedules, the PlayStation 2 won't be short on the sport titles by any means. Things have gotten to the point where there will be at least two major snowboarding titles on the store shelves at launch. The first is an action-packed arcade romp by Electronic Arts called SSX, and the other is Konami's simulation-oriented snowboarder called ESPN X Games—Snowboarding.

It wasn't long ago that Konami acquired the ESPN license, but Konami seems to have made the most of it. It is already promising to use bona fide video and graphics and statistic from the events. But even more important are the unique camera angles ESPN uses for its X Games events as well as color commentary by the pros. Konami plans for ESPN X Games—Snowboarding to be the first of many sports titles for release on the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation. With the ESPN brand name and attention to detail, it could find itself right up there with the likes of Sony's Cool Boarders series and Nintendo's phenomenal 1080º Snowboarding. Whether gamers will flock to the realism the game offers is still up in the air, but we will certainly find out when it is released this November.

Details about the gameplay and other features will be presented in multiple screenshots with accompanying captions in the following pages.