Dark Summit | DJcube

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NA release: 5th February 2002
EU release: 24th May 2002
JP release: N/A
Developer: Radical Entertainment
Publisher: THQ
NGC Magazine Score: 51%
Mods Used: Widescreen Hack

One thing I love about playing through games from a particular game or franchise is being surprised by a game you never expected. Dark Summit is another “edgy” extreme sports game that got middling reviews. When I first started playing, I kind of got the same vibe, but the more I played, the more I loved it, and in the end I was absolutely enthralled by it. Unlike other extreme sports games that went into the edgy direction, it didn’t do it by being rude or crass, instead it did something more unique.

Dark Summit takes place on Mt. Garrick, a ski resort that has been taken over for the military, with a dark secret being hidden by them. All the skiers seem to be part of keeping it covered up, and snowboarding is massively frowned upon. You play a new snowboarder in the area, who quickly gets wrapped up in the snowboarding resistance fighters. The story is only told in a few brief cutscenes and you get some snippets from the challenges being described to you, so it never gets in the way of the game, but gives it its own feel.

This also extends to the slopes, which all take place on a single mountain, with you unlocking more paths as you go on. Each area feels like its own thing – different paths focus on elements like a ski jump, stunt track and half-pipe – while still being part of a connected world, with danger and keep out signs everywhere, a distressed look and a dark and foreboding atmosphere, which is oddly appealing to skate through, especially as you smash through things and watch everything snap and fly down the mountain with you.

When you reach a starting point for an earlier part of the level, you can choose to get into the chairlift. You can also do this from the pause menu at ant point (one handy feature is you can also return to the start of your last challenge). Despite it, I went all the way down to the bottom of the mountain every single time – even after I’d gotten the required points to unlock all the equipment and outfits (most of which are minor variations of each other). There’s lots of different paths to take and I was still discovering newthings near the bottom towards the end of the game.

The secrets of the mountain are dumb in an amusing way, but the game does kind of end abruptly, barely even having a final cutscene before going to the credits and back to the main menu. You then unlock the other snowboarders you meet as playable characters. These control extremely well, as they start with the best equipment and have no outfits. They don’t change the game, although at the very least the original character takes their spot.

There are also a few oddities surrounding the game. The GameCube version seems to be a slightly earlier build than the PS2 and Xbox versions, despite being released later. It also has an “only for” sticker on it in North America indicating it was a GameCube exclusive when it wasn’t. I also found someone discussing the cheats on GameFAQs, which has had incorrect cheats for decades.

It’s difficult to describe just how compelling I found Dark Summit. It was bashed and ignored when it came out and is barely remembered now, so I wasn’t expecting much from it, but from the moment the controls clicked to the game ending, I absolutely loved it.

Fave

Sucking Dark Summit’s score down to more depressing depths is a silly storyline, some of videogaming’s worst-designed least-likeable characters, and a shedful of unforgivable shortcomings. Such as this: missions are handed to you by racing through ‘Mission Gates’, but there isn’t a map to show you the gates you’ve yet to find.
Mark Green, NGC Magazine #66

Remake or remaster?

I’d love a more cleaned up version with a bit more of a finale. Perhaps add in a character creator as well.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to play Dark Summit.