Video Game Review: ‘Shaun White Snowboarding’
Written by Michael Siebenaler | | news@toledofreepress.comShaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip (UbiSoft)
Ride the rail, jump the ramps and enjoy the adventure as original characters take a road trip join a nice variety of snowboarding competitions and eventually meet feature player Shaun White. This exciting Wii game features natural controls using the remote and the Wii balance board where you get a more authentic, full-motion experience. Master the controls to carve, tuck, brake, grind and trick your way to success.
Game modes include the standard single then three modes for a maximum of four players: co-operative, versus, which includes free play, and hot seat, where you chase a hologram of the best boarder. The multiplayer modes only allow use of one balance board. The levels increase in difficulty as you progress through settings including Canada (your tutorial level), Chile, Park City, Switzerland and Japan.
Your beginning characters, Canadian Jasmine and Texas born Gordon, have unique strengths in the skill areas of speed, jump, grip, landing and mass. Your accompanying camera boarder provides the great shots on your adventures while even reacting to your awesome moves…or lack thereof, especially the wipeouts where the victim gets a realistic blanket of snow for a while – a great graphical addition. This camera element adds some nice role playing elements and some realism to the fun. Expanded elements like half pipe adventures and character pranks provide even more entertainment.
Future unlockable characters have different skill sets, but all characters, except Shaun, have a total of seven points in each set plus special abilities when they are the camera operators for the main rider. Jasmine even has a higher jump rating than Shaun (it’s also her camera bonus) and Gordon bests White in the speed category. The characters, totaling eight, have special abilities that match their personalities in a common sense way. The tough Canadian John has a mass bonus that allows riders to plow through just about anything while Frenchman Francois and Hawaiian Michael can confuse opponents.
You get plenty of bonuses along the slope as respect ratings, specific items and special areas. Your jump, timing and landing all factor into the bonuses which can be chained together as long as gravity allows you. The general trick technique is to stop moving right before you land and discover which movements work best for fastest time, most tricks or collection challenges.
The controls respond well and have natural movements where you tilt the remote to the left or right for direction and multiple ways for tricks and stunts. The controls still demand sharp reaction times though you usually have plenty of maneuvering room on the slopes throughout the fast paced gameplay. Once you’re comfortable with the basic movements, then you can easily use A and B button combinations to soar to new heights. Obstacle collisions don’t slow you down too much and it’s very easy to jump on rails for grinds. Big obstacles slow you down, but don’t have to restart, which holds the gameplay interruptions to a minimum. You experience a high excitement level with low frustration as developers retain the danger level with realistic wipeouts and altered visuals at high speeds.
The clean graphics contains layers of great texture work and visuals change at fast speeds. Most load times are very minimal and the content shows a positive sense of humor suitable for all genders and ages. The music soundtrack includes songs from Audioslave, MGMT, Living Colour, Incubus, Heart, Kasabian, Modest Mouse, Three Days Grace, Blue Öyster Cult and Bob Dylan – just press the 1 button to advance songs.
A very accessible title has easy controls and awesome multiplayer modes (no online capabilities or Mii character use yet…maybe in the next version). The Target limited edition version features another setting an earlier appearance of Mr. White, but for a shorter period of time. This game has all the high speed, tricked out entertainment you could want and remains as one of the best, most entertaining games this year (****, different versions available on Nintendo DS, PC, Playstation2, Playstation3, PSP and Xbox360, Wii version rated E10+ for comic mischief and lyrics).
