INFINITE AIR review! The EA Skate of Snowboarding?

Short version: Infinite Air (Infinite Air with Mark McMorris) is a realism-focused snowboarding game, played here on Steam. It brags about being the Skate of snowboarding, and the controls and physics back that up, but there are only a few objectives per area and you could finish it in a couple of days. It goes for about $30, and for that price it’s absolutely worth checking out.

One of the newest snowboard games out there, and one of the biggest contenders for the best snowboard game of all time, is Infinite Air, which I’m playing on Steam. Is it any good? Let’s take a look.

Here at Rad Rat Video, I make all kinds of videos about skateboarding, like who invented certain tricks, skateboard controversies and trick tips. And as a special series for the winter, I’m taking a look at snowboard video games. This time we’re talking about Infinite Air.

The Skate of snowboarding?

Infinite Air brags about being the Skate of snowboarding. And although I think Skate is the Amped of skateboarding in the first place, the claim isn’t that far off. The game is based on realism, and the controls are actually really similar. Let me explain how it works.

You can ollie by flicking the right stick exactly like Skate, then move it left and right to twist around in the air. You can lean forward and backward with the left stick, so doing noseslides or bluntslides or anything like that will feel exactly the same as Skate. You also grab with the triggers, which are your right and left hands. There are different grabs than skateboarding, of course, and a lot of two-handed stuff too, but the way it works will feel really familiar to anyone used to Skate.

Wind-ups

But the similarities end there. Just like Snow and a few other sim games, one of the biggest things you’ll need to learn in Infinite Air is the wind-ups. If you hold the left trigger while riding, you’ll wind up left. After 1 second, you’ll be fully wound up, and holding it any longer will actually slow you down, so there’s an element of timing there. The right trigger will wind up right, and both together will just ollie, like flicking the stick does. But it gives you the chance to wind up or down for tamedogs and wildcats. Or you can mix those in with spins to get all the rodeos, cork spins and all that kind of stuff too.

Spin speed and physics

One of the coolest things they do with the physics is the way you control your spin speed. In most games, you spin by holding a direction, then stop when you let go of the stick. But in Infinite Air, there’s no stopping. It lets you cheat a little bit, but it’s mostly legitimate physics. Once you pop off the ramp, you spin automatically based on the amount you wound up. But the speed you spin is based on how much you crouch and what grab you do. Pulling your body in by crouching in the air or doing certain grabs will help you speed up. Other grabs make you wider and slow you down.

So a successful long jump might look like this: wind up as much as possible and start spinning like crazy. Once you start to get close to the ground, you can let go of the grab to slow down a little, then twist at the last second to land straight. Even without direct control of the spin, there’s still a lot you can do to determine whether you’ll make it or not, and I really like that.

They do cheat a little bit with the physics, though. Let’s say you do a straight spin out of the end of a halfpipe. The game will level you out automatically and make sure that the trick is landable. This helps a lot. In other sim games like Amped, you would have to plan for any change in angle and try to add in just the right amount of front or backflip to make sure you land flat. But with the really complicated controls of Infinite Air, that would have been too much of a pain, so they take care of it for you. Considering how long some of the runs are and how important it is to land clean, this is a huge help.

Style and landings

The game is really focused on style, but in a much different way than Amped. In that game, you spin slower and more controlled to gain style points, but in Infinite Air, it’s all about the landings. In some events, it feels like you can do the sickest trick possible on the ramp, and you’ll score terribly. You have to land clean to get a respectable score. That takes a lot of getting used to, but that level of complexity is really important for a snowboarding game, where there aren’t as many tricks. It would be too easy to just throw a crazy spin and hold a grab.

And style is a lot more important than they let on. The only way to get a multiplier going is to keep landing tricks clean. That increases the multiplier gauge, and it’s your only chance of beating high scores in later levels. The game never tells you that, though. I spent a lot of time trying to throw the biggest tricks and coming nowhere near the amount I needed before I figured that out.

Events and objectives

In general, the game drops you off at a course of some kind: a long jump, snow park, halfpipe or mountain run. You’re given a handful of objectives to check off, like a high score, a high score without any sloppy landings, certain tricks to do, and other stuff like that. I really like these. They’ll get you to try stuff that you might not have done yourself.

The difficulty of these is all over the board, though. Sometimes it’s a really easy trick you have to do, like a switch method. Other times it’s something really hard, like hitting a certain set of obstacles and scoring over 80 in a contest run. That means you can get through a lot of the game and unlock stuff without ever tackling any of the real challenges. But I guess that just gives you an incentive to go back and replay those levels.

Another thing they do is give you goals that are mutually exclusive, like getting a high score without doing grabs, or without doing any slides. You can’t do both in the same run. Or in the long jump, they want you to do a straight air and score a 25, but also score over 60. This kind of stuff pads the game out a bit, but I don’t really mind. It could use the extra content.

Touchy controls

One thing I have trouble with is how touchy the controls are at times. One of the challenges was to do an indy grab. You would think, in regular stance, that you would grab with your right hand on the right side of the board. In other words, right trigger, and right on the stick. But I kept doing stalefish grabs. I looked up the control, and I was doing it right, but even when I looked down at my controller and made sure I was doing it, it just wasn’t registering. It seems like the inputs are slightly tilted. You might have better luck with your controller, though.

Here’s another example. One of the challenges is to do a crippler. I don’t snowboard, so I’m not really sure exactly what that is, but I looked it up, and luckily I know enough to figure out what it’s talking about. Approach a vert wall frontside, hold the left trigger to wind up frontside, and hold left to backflip with it. But I just kept doing frontside 360s, or rodeos or corks. It took a million tries to eventually do one that counted, and the game didn’t even call it a crippler! And since it wasn’t a halfpipe event, I only had a couple of chances to try it in the run. This doesn’t happen too often, but it’s something to watch out for.

There’s also a decent chance you’ll get stuck on stuff from time to time. I don’t think there’s a way to reset your position either. You just have to restart the run if you can’t ollie your way out.

Ollieing onto rails is really hard sometimes. You hold the stick down, then pop it… and nothing happens. I had a lot more luck doing nollies for some reason. And every now and then a trick just won’t work. You’ll wind up, ride up the jump, let go… and just fly straight. It happens less and less as I get more of a feel for the game, but I don’t think it should happen at all. You have to jump a lot earlier than it feels like you should.

Pro challenges and your rider

Another kind of event is the pro challenges. In a lot of games, you’re trying to impress the pros to get sponsors. But this is actually the opposite. You’re trying to impress them so they’ll join your team, and then you can play as them in the game if you want. You’re trying to beat their high score, but there are other challenges too, like hitting all the same obstacles as them, or beating their score and their time. These runs are always really long and a lot of fun.

Even though I unlocked some pros, I mostly stuck to my created rider. You unlock hats and coats and all that kind of stuff, but weirdly, you can’t customize your actual face. You have to wear a face mask. It’s not a big deal, but it comes across as kind of lazy to me. Like they didn’t want to make every possible race and skin tone and stuff like that, so they just covered it all up and kept it neutral.

Making your own runs

Another cool thing you can do is make your own runs. I don’t really have the patience to take this seriously, but if you look on YouTube, there are a lot of people making crazy stuff. I just made a giant ramp so I could do huge spins off of it. You can smooth out snow, grade it, and drop in ramps and rocks. It’s definitely really cool for those of you who are into this kind of stuff.

Infinite Air vs. Amped 2

A while ago I said Amped 2 was the best snowboarding game of all time. How does Infinite Air compare to it?

Well, the engine of the game is really good. The feel of doing tricks, the realism and the physics are all great. But there’s just not as much to do. In Amped, you’ve got high scores, but you also have to try to do tricks by the camera guys for media points. You’ve got to hunt down the snowmen and find gaps. Then there are also contests with different events, plus photoshoots and sponsors, and even snowskating. That game is just packed with content.

But Infinite Air? There are only a few objectives per area, and you could finish the whole game in a couple of days. If you’re like me and you aren’t a big fan of creating mountains and playing online, that’s all there is to see.

Is Infinite Air worth it?

That said, it’s not a full-price game. It goes for about $30, but it was only 20 on Steam when I picked it up at the end of December. For that price, it’s absolutely worth checking out.

I really hope they make a sequel to this game. Take the great engine they already have, and just build more content: more mountains, more events, an expanded character creator. Put it out at full price, and I’d be willing to buy that.