Monday 23 Mar 2009

Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip is a welcome addition to the Wii gaming family. The game is refreshingly fun and downright charming with its cartoony art style and spot on control system.

The challenge of the game is simple, compete in various events in one country before following the elusive Shaun White (who by the way is an Olympic Gold Medalist who collaborated in the development of Road Trip) to another country to compete in more events. The story of the game plays second fiddle to the actual snowboarding, while there is a vague storyline running in the background, you are only really concerned with the job at hand…grinding and jumping your way to the top!

You can use either the Wii Remote or the Wii Balance Board combined with the Wii Remote to control your rider. While using the Wii Remote, simply tilt the controller left and right to turn your rider, flick the controller up to jump and use a combination of flicks and pushing the ‘A’ and/or ‘B’ buttons to perform various tricks once you are in the air. You can also use ‘A’ to increase your rider’s speed (or tuck as it is known in the snowboarding world) or ‘B’ to carve down the slope.

Tucking works well, sending you whizzing down the mountain slope, but you will have a harder time cornering so avoiding those moose scampering across your path or that darned tree may lead to you ploughing into a snow drift and losing your hard-earned speed. Similarly with carving there is a proviso, you gain the advantage of carving left and right but you lose speed. The control system is responsive and, because it is largely motion controlled, it really draws you into the snowboarding experience.

However, snowboarding on the Balance Board is where the game really shines. Standing on the Balance Board sideways, shift the weight on your back foot left and right to navigate twists and turns in the slope ahead. Use your front foot to tuck, the ‘B’ button on the Wii Remote and weight on your back foot to carve and put pressure on both feet to jump. Performing tricks is achieved through a combination of adjusting your weight in different ways and pressing the ‘A’ and/or ‘B’ buttons on the Wii Remote. The same restrictions for tucking and carving apply to these controls.

Apart from being incredibly intuitive and responsive, using the Balance Board is a lot more fun because it feels as if you are actually on a snowboard. Granted, it is a little more difficult to master than the Wii Remote’s control scheme, but it’s well worth the effort and after a few runs down the slope, you will be snowboarding like a pro.

In addition to being fun, you are guaranteed to use much more energy using the Balance Board. In fact you may just use so much energy that you find yourself switching to the Wii Remote for a short while to catch your breath. Luckily switching between control schemes is easy and adds variety to the game as well.

The only time I found the Balance Board to be slightly imprecise was when trying to execute Half Pipes. I found it difficult to rack up the required score because the Board simply did not respond as well as it did on the downhill events. You may find it easier to switch to the Wii Remote before entering a Half Pipe event, but then again, perhaps you will enjoy the challenge!

While you may not always know exactly how to perform certain tricks, or which trick shifting your weight in this direction might give rise to, you are guaranteed to get a kick out of getting a trick right and landing correctly afterwards to secure your score. More serious snowboarders can consult the trick table in the manual to work out exactly how to perform a Stalefish or a Flying Squirrel but I was content to just string moves together and see what I came up with.

So now that you know how to control your snowboard, let’s take a closer look at scoring points. To score points in Road Trip you will have to perform tricks and land correctly too. You score points by grinding, which is balancing on rails known as grinds, executing grind tricks (for example, jumping from grind to grind or performing a trick while on the grind) or pulling off air tricks. Without a proper landing your trick efforts count for nothing because if you fall, or bail as it is known in snowboarding jargon, you lose your trick points and become a human snowball as well.

However, if you make a perfect landing after a trick your points are increased by 10% and the Point Multiplier and Combo Timer are activated. Once these are activated you have 8 seconds to chain more tricks together and increase your score. If you pull off an adequate landing you will also activate the multiplier and timer but won’t earn the extra 10% on your points, while if you don’t align the board properly with the slope, you keep your points but lose the Point Multiplier and Combo Timer and need to land another trick to start chaining the tricks again.

In addition to scoring you points, chaining tricks also fills your Respect Meter. Once the meter is full, activate it by pressing the D-pad on the Wii Remote to trigger the special abilities of the cameraman including speed or jump boosts depending on which cameraman you have chosen.

As you progress through the game more friends will join your Road Trip, each with their own unique abilities, so choose your rider and cameraman wisely before beginning each challenge. Speaking of challenges, each event offers two types: the dare goal is the main objective which if completed successfully will unlock a new event; and the respect goal is a side objective that gives you access to souvenirs of the journey.

Basically there are three types of challenges that you will face across the five countries: completing a race within a set time, beating a certain score and collecting items. While it may take you a while to get to know the layout of a certain track, you will probably be able to accomplish each task after a few runs down the slope. With that being said, the game does progress in terms of difficulty but repeating the events never became too tiring because the events are staged on different tracks.

It would be amiss of me not to mention the absolutely rocking soundtrack in the game. You will be happy to know that the game features some awesome classics including the quintessential ‘Don’t fear the Reaper’ by Blue Oyster Cult as well as ‘We Come 1’ by Faithless, Sweet’s ‘The Ballroom Blitz’ and even a cool version of Johnny Cash’s famous tune ‘Ring of Fire’ by Social Distortion to name but a few. It’s really hard not to get caught up in the whole snowboarding world if you turn the volume up loud enough to hear the sound of the snowboard cutting through the snow as Audioslave’s ‘Gasoline’ blares through your speakers.

Road Trip also allows you to share the snowboarding fun with your friends. Up to four players can participate in dare objectives together in a co-operative splitscreen mode. Unfortunately you will have to unlock all the events from the single player campaign again, but I suppose this does add to the replayability factor of the game. The more competitive gamers will enjoy the versus and hot seat modes, the first a simultaneous splitscreen challenge and the latter where players take turns. Of course you can only use one Balance Board at a time, but given the more than adequate Wii Remote controls this really shouldn’t be a problem.

If you thought careening down a mountain slope was fun, you are in for a treat with careening down a mountain slope with three friends, competing for grinds and racing to get to the finishing line first or to get the highest score. Road Trip is the epitome of easy to pick-up-and-play, so this game is ideal for when a couple of mates come over, even if some of them are not avid gamers.

All in all, Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip is well polished and promises to deliver hours of fun, whether it be navigating the slopes alone or testing your mettle against a couple of friends. The control system is spot on and is both a great example of what can be achieved using the motion controls of the Wii and a sign that the Balance Board is a useful peripheral that is here to stay.

Pros: Great control systems; easy to pick-up-and-play; fun; rocking soundtrack; great multiplayer

Cons: Objectives can be repetitive; Balance Board can sometimes be imprecise

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Contributor:	Lisa

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