I haven’t played another snowboarding game since the SSX 3 from mobile unblocked games, that was one addictive game…while it lasted. What a perfect time to release another snowboarding game during or I should say near Wintertime. Shaun White Snowboarding, available for PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, PC, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable. As a beginner snowboarder myself, its time for me to play another snowboarding game to get me warmed up…well at least mentally.
Story and controls
Well, there isn’t really a story, you choose a character out of the initial 3 and there are 6 unlockable characters. Then you will be basically snowboarding your way through 5 different slopes with increasing difficulties, you unlock the next one by completing the current one’s objectives and challenges. Each slope has its own quests and the first slope’s quests are basically tutorials that teach you about 4 basic skills – Speed, Carving, Rail riding, and Jump/Grabs. Speed is obvious, basically, you collect more points by going as fast as you can, without crashing of course. Carving is, in-car term, drifting, but in snow and you get more points by performing near misses such as carving really close to a tree.
Rail riding is riding on rails or broken tree branches and performing tricks while keeping yourself balanced by tilting left and right. Finally, Jump/Grabs is jumping over ramps and perform tricks. This last skill is the trickiest and hardest to master because it has TONS of combinations. While in the air, you can rotate in all 4 directions, you can grab your board with your left hand, right hand, or even both hands. You can combine them and perform something complicated such as rotate left while grabbing the board with your right hand and then rotate back while grabbing your board with both hands etc. Of course the trickier stun you can execute, the more points you get.
After each quest, you gain XP, as experience for each skill you have executed, so if you executed Speed skill, you get XP for skill, etc. You can then use this XP to either upgrade your current skill level or buy new boards that are skill-based, meaning Speed boards will boost your Speed skill level plus another positive or negative boost for other skills. Why negative? If your Carve skill is level 4, some Speed boards will bring your Carve skill back to 3 for example. So choose your board wisely when tackling a particular slope or quest.
There is the main objective for each quest and 2 sub-objectives which I highly suggest you complete as they unlock new boards with new boost bonuses and they aren’t really that much harder to do, at least for the first 2 slopes.
The game also supports multiplayer which I have not had a chance to try out, unfortunately. But basically there are two modes – Co-op and competitive and I’m sure I don’t have to explain too much here.
Gameplay, Graphics
Controls are very easy to get used to, at least in terms of executing basic moves and tricks. As I said, it will take a bit to master or even get a hang of executing combo moves for LOTS Of POINTS, as the game’s tutorial explains. You can find your fingers pretty busy most of the time, even more so when you are attempting tricky tricks! Overall I think it’s pretty addictive since there are skills to level up and boards to purchase, collect them all, anyone?
Graphics are your typical PSP quality, at least it looks or at least I think its better than Spider-man: Web of Shadows. The game uses “blur” effects to simulate the sense of speed but didn’t quite do as good of a job as Burnout. Burnout is the only game so far that can give me the great sense of speed that I crave for. Your character is very alive though on the other hand, very energetic.
I wish I could take more in-game pictures but it’s just too blurry to take them while actually snowboarding. I apologize but you can check out the images for the PSP version at IGN.
Sound
Also your typical snowboarding music, some rock, and some techno ones. Gotta love them and would be perfect in combination with the sense of speed if it was done better. Environmental sound is also nicely designed, with the board scratching sound to birds singing but the music is pretty loud so most of the time you will only hear the music and the occasional bumping sound or ice/snow scraping sound.
Final verdict
If you are into games and snowboarding, I think Shaun White Snowboarding will not disappoint. With different boards with different attributes to unlock and character leveling, you will have hours upon hours of snowboarding fun…..on a PSP. You might also consider getting this game on PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 for better graphics and other features, but if you are looking for on-the-go gaming fun like me, this game should be another worthy game to purchase for your PSP.
8/10