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When Boštjan Čadež released the original Line Rider in September 2006, it quickly became an internet phenomenon. Less of a game and more a creative tool, Line Rider allowed players to draw their own sledding tracks with a mouse, and then send a helpless sledder plummuting down the track, often to his death. The results were creative and hilarious, spawning all sorts of crazy videos. A mere three months after the game's original launch, developer inXile acquired the rights, and Line Rider 2 on Wii and DS followed shortly thereafter. visuals It's a DS game involving lines, a sledder and the occasional background to break up the monotony. A graphical powerhouse this is not. inXile chose to target kids with this package, so several animated movies are included in the story mode involving cartoonish kids and their sledding antics. audio The original Line Rider allowed users to set their own audio to the videos they created of their crazy tracks. Here on DS, Line Rider 2 makes due with lighthearted video game tunes. gameplay Line Rider 2 comes off like a tech demo. Freestyle mode will allow you create your own tracks to share with your Friends, just like the original Line Rider. Puzzle mode offers up several puzzle tracks, in which you must draw in the missing lines to guide your sledder to the goal. Story mode is puzzle mode with, well, a story. The problem is that guiding your sledder is a lot of trial-and-error, and because of that, the game will have you feeling like you're wasting your time. The Line Rider 2 physics engine interacts with your sledding is all sorts of frustrating ways. A small, misdrawn bump -- the kind you will often draw -- easily becomes a sledding hazard, which will cause your sledder to flip out of control off track. Even sledding down relatively innocuous tracks, which have you drawing in one hill to the finish line, will take you far too long to get the perfect hill just right. This brings you to the second problem: the interface. While drawing and erasing lines is simple and clean, selecting the proper tool takes three or more stylus strokes, which slows down the process tremendously. If this were a webpage, such as the poorly designed Facebook, then developer inXile fails in terms of usability. In addition, in order to test your newly drawn track, you must let your sledder race down the entire track, a process which must be repeated after each little tweak. Yes, Line Rider 2 will test your patience. This is too bad. Once you get past the steep learning curve, Line Rider 2 gets quite rewarding. But what compounds its problems is that the package is being aimed squarely at kids. So unless your little tyke is the experimental type who likes building things with LEGOs, most parents will want to pass. multiplayer You can share the tracks you create in Freestyle mode over NWFC; unfortunately, creating a track can take quite some time and effort. The developers have tried to make it worthwhile by offering up a web portal on the official Line Rider 2 site that allows you to create your own profile and search and vote on tracks uploaded by other players. overall It costs you $20. Most gamers won't even want to pick it up for $10. You're better off playing the online Line Rider, which gives you the same experience at no cost whatsoever.
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