izigame.me

Tough one.
Im breaking down why negative as of now, with the potential to change later.
The game was purchased for 22.49€. At that price i was roughly done with 60% of the games content after only 1.3 hours.
It only features 3 mountains, with 4 tracks each and 2 slopes for each track.
A slope is only a slightly different variation of a track, which is something i found an odd design choice, as most of the fun you had in Downhill (the mountainbike prequel) was finding new shortcuts and alternative routes, sometimes completely dependant on the bike you chose and more often than not you had several routes down a hill, that played entirely different.
You could combine these routes and their shortcuts, to find doezns upon dozens of possible paths to the goal.
You have a few shortcuts here too and some are also "blocked" if you dont use the respective ski, however, not only did i find that sometimes stuff isnt working as intended, the shortcuts also barely seem to matter and i get to why soon.

What sometimes doesnt seem to work as intended, are the ski.
In Downhill your bikes had clear abilities and styles that made them distinct from each other.
One was super sturdy for jumps which allowed you to take tough shortcuts, another was incredible on rough surfaces allowing you to pick paths the other bikes could absolutely not take.
Here i played on a track that featured ice in an area i lost most of my time getting through, so i unlocked the Ski (Ram) that said, they would give me more control on ice sections.
I picked them and did the same track again, to improve, only to find out, they wouldnt allow me any control on ice, neither did i get any more speed on ice from them.
They played pretty much exactly as the other equipment i used at that point.
After already unlocking 4 of the 6 ski you can pick from, i struggle to see any major difference in their playstyles.
Sure one is slightly better to steer and the other is slightly better for jumps, but not really and especially not in a way that their differences allowed entire new routes or playstyles.
The peak was picking ski that should go better over water, only to directly drown at the next puddle, that i could later cross with other Ski that have a weakness to water.
Now to continue on the most important point, as to why the shortcuts dont matter here:
The challenges are laughable.
I played for only 14 minutes and finished the first 3 tracks with their two slopes, breezing through the only 3 challenges per track.
The challenges are not only easy as hell (and i consider myself being not very good at both games), they are also all the same.
Get through the track in timeframe X (pretty generous timeframe), get through with less than X crashes, get through in timeframe Y with less than X crashes (slightly less generous time, but still noob level).
I did NEVER need to pick a shortcut to beat the challenge times.
Downhill had several challenges that at least varied what you had to do, like having to get down to the goal without crashing once, removing all checkpoints.
Or you had to do challenges with a specific bike.
You wont find that here.
Not only that, there wont be new challenges you unlock (as you did in the previous game), after you beat the really easy ones.
That means you play each track once, beat the 3 challenges in your first go, at the most after your 3rd attempt, and thats it for the track, no reason to replay in terms of challenges.
What im missing here is the game giving me these challenges, let me beat them, then throwing tougher ones at me, to constantly challenge my skill for each mountain and track, trying new equipment and routes, having me to explore to find the optimal path with my playstyle.
Thats all gone.
Nothing of what made Downhill so challenging is to be found here, which is the core reason why im thumbin down.
Some Pros:
The game looks great.
It feels fast and the map design seems interesting.
Sound is nice (yet, still no music tracks)
Coop/PvP is an absolute highlight and should have been mandatory for Downhill too (i hope they add far more options, modes and modificators to those modes).

All in all, the game provides the bare minimum, but what breaks its neck is the lack of content, lack of challenge proposed and thus the lack of replayability.
Im easily motivated to run down the same hill/mountain over and over, as i did with Downhill, playing a challenge for like 2 hours straight on the same track to get the best time and beat a challenge, to then unlock a new bike.
But here, theres none of that and thus no reason to replay a mountain after i finished the challenges, which again took me 1.3 hours to beat about 50% of the game (im at the second of 3 mountains, finished 3 of 4 tracks with both slopes each, which means i have 5 tracks left. Thats like an additional hour at most and i have beaten all challenges.).
For 22,5€ thats just not a lot. For 10€? Instant recommendation, would have bought two keys even.
But now, i have a hard time recommending it to strangers for that price, let alone a friend to pay that price for only 12 tracks to play on.
It hurts and i wont refund, because despite that, i love the gameplay. Heres me hoping the devs will add a ton more content especially in terms of challenges.
As it cant be that i only need like one attempt to finish all challenges of a track as a total noob.
I dont need a carrot on a stick to motivate me playing, i need a stick poking my pride to come back and beat the hell out of it.
Snow Riders has the former via Skin unlocks, but lacks the latter with its too easy challenges.

Edit:
I beat all challenges the game has to offer after 2,9 hours.
Which includes stuff like menu scrolling and me going through one track with easily 10 attempts because i challenged myself to go a specific route i wasnt allowed to use to cheese the track (successfully), which took easily 20 minutes (pretty much the timeframe i needed to complete an entire mountain out of 3).
This means i have completed all the singleplayer content.
While playing i also noticed, that the game doesnt feature a night mode too, compared to Downhill, which added a good amount of replayability and challenge.
Your dude could have come with a headlamp to provide the necessary light.
Mind, i had fun riding down the mountains, especially the third one has some really fun tracks (Spiral Mountain).
Yet i am missing singleplayer content.
If you happen to have one or more friends willingly play the game with you in multiplayer, you possibly get some additional hours out of it.
But be reminded that i spent over 9 hours in Downhill and didnt finish all available content, havent unlocked all bikes and not played all tracks in night mode.
The games content thus is severely lacking and i recommend to wait for a large sale or substantial additions.