Project Powder is like a television sitcom. It has moments of fun but grows stale quickly and is soon forgotten. The problem is depth. It doesn’t have much. On the surface it is a surprisingly fun snowboard racing game. There are quite a few courses, enough players to find matches, and three different race types: race, battle, and coin. It plays a bit like SSX for the PS2, which isn’t a bad thing. Unfortunately, you control the game with the keyboard. No mouse, no controller. And the arrow keys are for movement. WASD is for tricks… Why? Did they intentional flip it so everyone could learn how to use their right hand for movement? It doesn’t make much sense to me… But that’s fine, I’ll just remap my keys… Oh, no I won’t. Not an option here.
In fact, options is where this game fails. There just isn’t much depth. Project Powder doesn’t seem ready for prime time. An MMO it is not. Sure, you learn tricks and your character is persistent. But, there is very little interaction with other players. The only time you see them is right before a race. Communication is almost nil. There is a guild system (known as “crews”), but for the life of me I could not find where it is located in the menu. I received a random crew invite but there is no way to learn anything about that crew. Who is in charge? How many members? There doesn’t appear to be any sort of ranking system for players or crews. I honestly don’t know what the point to joining a crew would be… Perhaps it will be an added feature?
Oh and you can rent gear. Yep, rent. Gear – such as pants, goggles, snowboard, etc. – is a temporary acquisition and will only last 7 days. I suppose this is a way to keep players from having too much coin. However, it seems to defeat any opportunity for the company to make real money from their players. I don’t know too many people that would spend their cash for in-game coins to buy temporary items… It seems that they would have been better off with permanent gear and fewer coins for the races. Perhaps an entry fee to enter each event? Not that I’m complaining about not spending cash. Just speculating on the design decision… 
They have a couple more racing modes in development right now. Both sound pretty cool. Unfortunately, this doesn’t do anything to address my concerns about community tools and control options. It might make the arcade aspect a bit more compelling, but probably won’t add much longevity to the game.
Well, that about sums up my experience with the game. I recommend Project Powder for anyone looking for a simple, fun, multiplayer racing game that you can jump right into. Just don’t expect much more than one or two evening’s worth of entertainment.
