STOMP THE LANDING IN THIS SEASON’S MOST AUTHENTIC SNOWBOARDING EXPERIENCE – MARK MCMORRIS INFINITE AIR NOW AVAILABLE ON PLAYSTATION®4, XBOX ONE AND PC
Drop into Fresh Powder, Hit the Half-Pipe, or Create and Share Your Own Course with Friends – The Mountain is at Your Fingertips in Maximum Games’ New Action Sports Title
October 25, 2016 – Walnut Creek, CA – Grab your board and take to the mountains! Video game publisher Maximum Games, in partnership with developer HB Studios, has today announced that its snowboarding game, Mark McMorris Infinite Air, is available now for $49.99 on the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows PC via Steam® platforms.
Infinite Air is the first open-world, physics-based snowboarding video game built in close collaboration with top pro-snowboarder, Mark McMorris. With dedication to recreating the authenticity and excitement of the snowboarding experience, Infinite Air features an all-star lineup of six highly talented pro-snowboarders available to play in-game, including X Games Gold medalists Silje Norendal, Torstein Horgmo, Danny Davis, along with notable pro-snowboarders, Ulrik Badertscher and Craig McMorris.
“Being part of the creation of Infinite Air has been a dream come true! As a kid growing up, I always looked up to athletes who were able to create their own video games and today I get to inspire the next generation,” said Mark McMorris. “I’m extremely proud of what we came up with and thankful for all of the hard work put in by everyone involved. I couldn’t be more excited to share Infinite Air with everyone and can’t wait for you all to experience a different type of snowboarding game!”
In Infinite Air, players will be able to use their imagination to carve out their own unique tracks in pristine powdery courses. Offering over 100 square miles of vast backcountry terrain across massive procedurally generated mountains, the options are near endless and guarantee that no course will ever be the same. Not even the high alpine snowy mountain tops are out of reach as the helicopter will allow players to land in any location offered in the game.
“Infinite Air is a fantastic game for sports fans looking for the ultimate adrenaline rush,” said Christina Seelye, CEO of Maximum Games. “Our game delivers the most authentic snowboarding experience, and offers an amazing roster of pro-boarders, led by X Games legend, Mark McMorris, and we’re excited for gamers everywhere to get their hands on it.”
Building upon HB Studios’ signature content creation system used in the highly successful title, The Golf Club, Infinite Air has incorporated the World Editor feature where players can custom build, ride and share tracks in their own style, or compete against friends and their respective courses from all around the world!
Mark McMorris Infinite Air is available now on PlayStation®4, Xbox One and PC for $49.99. This title has been rated “T for Teen” by the ESRB.
For more product information, please visit http://www.infiniteairthegame.com.
For more information on Maximum Games, please visit: http://www.maximumgames.com.
About Maximum Games
Maximum Games ranks as a top 15 global video game publisher of interactive digital entertainment spanning all genres and supporting multi-platforms. The company’s mission is to provide a proven and strong hands-on approach to publishing, marketing, and distribution. Established in 2009, the company is led by female entrepreneur Christina Seelye, a seasoned executive of digital consumer products and channel marketing. Under Seelye’s leadership, the company has been recognized with numerous awards such as “Fastest Growing Tech Company” by American Business Awards, and has made the Inc. 5000 list of Fastest Growing Private Companies for the past two years. Maximum Games has offices in both the US and UK, and continues to expand its scope of global publishing and distribution via direct reach and strategic partnerships. For more information on Maximum Games, visit the company’s website at http://www.maximumgames.com.
About HB Studios
Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada, HB Studios is an electronic entertainment software company that specializes in creating console, mobile, handheld and PC games. With the release of The Golf Club for PS4, Xbox One and PC in May 2014, HB Studios has shipped 45 titles selling more than 27 million units, and contributed to 19 others. More information about HB Studios and its products can be found on the company’s website, www.hb-studios.com.
© 2016 HB Studios Multimedia Ltd. Developed by HB Studios. HB Studios, HB Studios logo, Infinite Air, and the Infinite Air infinity logo are trademarks of HB Studios Multimedia Ltd. Athlete name and image rights used under license. Published under license by Maximum Gamesä. Maximum Gamesä and the Maximum Gamesä logo are trademarks of Maximum Games, LLC. All rights reserved.
Story
After a terribly tedious tutorial in NXT, the player is thrown right into television with a bunch of random no-name stars as they all try to be the next big thing through their ring-work and promos. The player will pick a character, watch unstoppable openings for shows, and fight the lower card week after week as they work to get a decently ranked match. Yes, we are now ranked on our matches, but it isn’t quite what it seems. Matches have a five star rating mechanic this year, where everything you do adds stars to the overall scoring of a competition. The more “excitement” that the game feels the match is receiving, the more the ranking goes up. Its a simple formula that SHOULD work, but fails to do anything noteworthy as matches with random punching and a quick submission can end in three stars, and count-out victories can score higher even if there is little ring work throughout the match. It is an absolutely worthless gimmick that carries into the standard game, reminding players of how broken the new mechanic is throughout their entire experience.
After hours of work to get a title shot, the player can eventually get the attention of Paul Heyman (by selecting the default option) or join The Authority to cause some chaos. These little fork-in-the-road paths offer only light rewards, as you are still doing the same grind, but with a few more inflated scenes that attempt to give the options meaning, but fall flat due to the lack of substance. Speaking of lack of substance, the promo system borrows from a dialogue tree as players must quickly string preset phrases together in order to build their character at random points. Sadly, the dialogue options provided are stale and generic, delivering no connection to the actual event that may be occurring during the mode. All of this is a mess, bound together by actual WWE footage that constantly plays before any big event, reminding us how far away from the actual show we actually are. There just isn’t any originality or imagination to make this mode work, as it instantly hands the player a script for their own character while it forces them to color by numbers until the last bell is sound.
The standard match types are all back as well, but with huge exclusions such as tag team table and tag team ladder matches nowhere to be seen, we as fans are getting to recreate less of those famous moments due to shortcuts that were implemented due to new mechanics that come into the mix already broken. The ladder matches have had a large overhaul this year, as the player now doesn’t have to worry about setting the ladder up properly due to a handful of predetermined spots being the only location the weapon can go. I suppose this was done to make spots easier, but the AI seem to get glitched out a lot while trying to set up the ladder and if blocked by another AI, will walk in place holding it until they finally float (yes, FLOAT, as in hovering without legs moving) to that particular position. Most wrestlers can no longer properly tie up on the ladder as well, as now simple kicks and punches have replaced most of the grapples. Grabbing a briefcase is also a headache as instead of just “pull until loose” we have yet another game-breaking mini-game that makes this match predictable and rather stale.
Take submissions for example. The whole blue and red circle chase was terrible last year, so WWE Games added another option of tapping buttons. When I heard this I was actually excited as that worked in the old games – and when I lost, I felt like I earned that defeat. What’s disappointing about this is that they managed to ruin that small swap by using the same, broken tapping mechanic in play when in the corner of the ring during the rumble. This means you have to pick a button quickly and shift to the next input on the screen when you are in a submission, and while that might sound more intuitive, it actually makes matches end to headlocks and simple submissions way too easy. The window comes too fast and changes direction at a dime, leaving the player watching the AI fill the tap meter instantly while defeat is devoured by a bitter player who didn’t even get a chance. Mini-games are not fun to start with as they take you out of the match. Having to watch the AI bust out a standard submission to end a match (and then get a one star match as a salty surprise) is just miserable and without a slider to adjust submission ratios, there is simply no fix and we get stuck with the horrible submission system of the past that is still broken online.
Overall
