Whatever snowboarding games have taught you to expect…don’t expect that from Stoked. That means no candy-colored snow, no adrenaline meters, and definitely no well-groomed runs jammed with jumps and rails. Stoked zeroes in on one thing: landing tricks in the backcountry. It comes off as a little too laser-focused and a lot too technical, but if you’re at all interested in snowboarding games, we guarantee it’ll impress you, too.

Our favorite feature took us a little while to notice: the weather. And thanks, but we’re not dopey enough to be excited about simply boarding through a blizzard. In Stoked, the five big mountains constantly change — one time you might plow through deep, plush powder, but if the sun’s been blazing for a bit, that same run might be mined with bare rock and dirt the next time you try it. You can even chopper back up to the summit (a painlessly quick process; there’s very little commuting here) and follow the path you carved on your last run…unless it’s snowing so hard that your trail got covered up.

So Stoked’s slopes are big, pretty, and damn cool to explore, but it’s the gameplay that matters, and here Stoked might lose some of you. The trick controls feel great, and working the controller to execute twists, flips, and slides feels natural pretty quickly. But the game is all about boarding to a certain spot and either beating a high score or landing a series of specific tricks. If you blow it, don’t expect mercy — success or surrender are your only options. The minimal in-game help (only grabs are detailed) and heavy use of jargon means you’d better know what a 50- 50 or a Switch Frontflip is…or you’ll be pausing to RTFM or Google your way to enlightenment.

Once you crest what can be a steep learning curve, you’ll start plowing through the dozens of challenges that dot every nook, but here’s where that “laser-focused” part might start chapping your hide. We found ourselves really wishing for a race, a boardercross, or even just a boring ol’ slalom to give us a breather from the tricks, tricks, and more tricks.

Fortunately, terrific multiplayer can be that break. Eight players meet up on the mountain and invite each other to events (including races!) that can be started anywhere. Our favorite: a cool competition called The Ground Is Lava, where the only way to keep your board from melting is by staying in the air.

We saved the best for last: Stoked is priced at a sweet, sweet $40. So even if a tricks-splosion isn’t your personal boarding nirvana, there’s enough great stuff in this game that you’d be crazy to not check it out.

On Xbox 360

+ Fantastic slopes and controls.

+ Smokes that Shaun White game…and costs $20 less!

- Too much try-fail-repeat gameplay; too little variety.

? Why not display every single slide, grab, and flip in the in-game move list?

7.5