Zoo Peaks : Riders

Before the first race, Ricky has already shoved Kimi and Senna. On the slope it's your turn: flick the right stick to push the rival next to you.

The race

The countdown ends and seven riders go together: you and six AI rivals. Cut the corners and look for the hidden routes: Whiteout and Crystal Peak have four each. Your record stays next to the clock, and the finish screen tells you how many seconds you took off it.

The tricks

Eleven grabs, from the Indy to the Rocket, each with a tweaked version. Spins up to a 1440, flips up to a quad, corks and rodeos. On rails you slide 50-50 or boardslide and hop from one rail to the next. Every trick added to a combo is worth 25% more if you land clean. A sketchy landing wipes the bonus; land too crooked and you crash.

In Freestyle, every circuit sets three scores to beat: bronze, silver and gold.

Boost and Uber tricks

Your tricks fill the boost meter, and the same trick repeated earns less each time. With a full meter you get twenty seconds to pull an Uber trick: Superstar, Power Nap, Moon Hop or Paw Parade. Each Uber lights one letter of B-O-O-S-T. Light all five and your boost stops draining until the finish.

Seven circuits, each with its own track

• Aurora Peak: a cave where the crystals light up as you pass.
  
• Powder Peak: a helicopter drop on the summit, then an abandoned mine and a crevassed glacier.
  
• Midnight City: the city at night, a jump over the tram, fireworks timed to the music.
  
• Sugar Rush: a torrent of molten chocolate and marshmallow fields that bounce you up.
  
• Ice Cathedral: the run goes through the nave of a gothic abbey, over an organ track.
  
• Whiteout: a 50 m kicker over a helicopter, then black ice in the blizzard.
  
• Crystal Peak: pink and cyan crystals all the way to a palace courtyard.

The riders

Kimi the cat, Bambou the polar bear, Senna the bunny, Pit the fox, Ricky the raccoon, and Amalia. Each one shouts in mid-air in their own voice and has their own podium lines. Win every circuit in both modes and a seventh rider, made of gingerbread, joins the crew.

At the lodge you pick your rider and your board. There are eight boards, and every new circuit you finish unlocks one, whatever your place.

Two players, one screen

Player two plugs in a controller and joins from the lodge. You ride the same run on a split screen against five AI riders.

Also in the game

• A replay after every race: five cameras, slow motion down to 0.1×, and a photo mode that saves PNGs.
  
• DualSense with haptics, Xbox-style controllers, or keyboard.
  
• Text in English and French.
  
• On Mac, hardware ray-traced shadows and reflections on M3 chips and later, with MetalFX upscaling.