Snow Wave: Avalanche is a 1998 arcade snowboarding video game developed and published by the Spanish company Hammer Technologies.[1][2] The game was the second release in Hammer's "Hammer Sports" line, following Tie Break Tennis '98.[1] In addition to its single-player mode, Snow Wave supports multiplayer gameplay for up to four players.[3]
Development
Snow Wave was developed on the Avalanche 3D game engine, which was created for the game. The band MataMala provided the game's soundtrack.[4] During Snow Wave's development, it was cited as the first computer game dedicated to snowboarding, despite the genre's popularity on other systems.[5]
Spain's game development scene was struggling at the time of Snow Wave's creation.[2][1] Hammer reported that development had grown "much harder" since the golden age of Spanish software during the 8-bit era, and that most of the country's industry had dried up.[1] However, the Spanish magazines Game Over and PC Top Player cited Snow Wave as evidence that domestic game development was rebounding.[2] A writer for the latter publication argued that the title was part of a growth trend for Spanish games, on the heels of the domestic hit Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines.[6]
Alan Wilder of Game Over summarized Snow Wave as "radically good",[2] while PC Top Player's Alfredo Vegas declared it "a great game".[3] Writing for PC Gamer US, Joe Novicki found Snow Wave "competent and entertaining", despite docking it points for its high system requirements.[7]
