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Wakeboarding Unleashed Featuring Shaun Murray
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Wakeboarding Unleashed Featuring Shaun Murray Review
Mark Simons
17/06/2003
Better than Tony Hawk? Definitely wetter. Quite possibly better.
Here at the TVG offices we now have a strange compulsion to go out, get a speedboat and drag Chris along on a plank of wood strapped on with some waterproof masking tape. Much in the same way we feel Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is in some way responsible for the number of kids knocking about these days with skateboards â“ sure there are more of them than before the game came out â“ this could inspire more people to have a look at wakeboarding, well, possiblyâ¦
Wakeboarding Unleashed featuring Sean Murray is a touch of genius. Whenever we see a new extreme sport game we are at the same time intrigued and worried. They have the potential to be great, but a lot of them just seem to say 'me too' with a publisher's need for cold hard cash. Suffice to say a wakeboarding game left us intrigued, if they nailed it then perhaps it could be fun. We didn't realise how much fun.
Using the standard Tony Hawk controls, which seem to be the best for any type of board based game, you immediately feel at home on the water, especially after the most excellent introduction to the game. There are some important things to note about wakeboarding, but basically this plays like Tony Hawk, but being dragged along rather quickly. The speedboat allows for some silly speeds meaning silly air and silly tricks and silly scores. Good stuff.
Within a few moments you will be away, jumping, grabbing, flipping and grinding, all animated very well and with the usual balance meters for your grinds. You can also manual, again implemented using the same technique as in the Hawk series; so when you land a trick you can continue your combo by a surface trick leading into something else and lots and lots of points.
The most important thing about the game is the wire that attaches you to the boat. It can snap, but you can, with a quick flick of the shoulder button, drop the handle and with your momentum get some huge air, or do some tight angular grinds and pop out at an interesting place. If you manage to land and still keep going then the boat will find you, press the trigger again and you get the rope back and you continue on your way. Due to the physics involved in the rope, boat and water this is just so satisfying. But wait. This becomes about the best thing ever, well, recently, with this simple addition.
Co-operative play.
One of you wakeboards whilst the other drives the boat â“ simple but pure satisfaction. The water is some of the most convincing we've seen, but we'll discuss that in a moment. The boat controls simply, and, luckily for the game, brought back some good memories of WaveRace64. You only have acceleration and steering to worry about, with the boat being quite nippy and agile this is very satisfying. Realism takes a backseat to fun here. There are some issues with the boat getting stuck in places, but this doesn't detract â“ the game normally puts you back in the water quickly â“ because usually it's just that you messed up.
The camera system with the two-player co-op means that you are both on one screen â“ although there is a split option however. But we like having it all on one screen, the camera is quite smart and when you do moves that require you to drop the rope, you can see the camera move close to the border but remain focused at the boat, allowing the driver to zoom close by and picking the wakeboarder back up. Once you do this yourself you'll understand our excitement as it is so satisfying to have two people doing hugely different tasks but with a common purpose. Both the boarder and driver are equally important as being poor in one affects the other. You also get a whole host of challenges to do that are specific to the co-op mode, how nice of Shabba games!
Fortunately the One-player isn't too shabby either; you have some amusing objectives to do in the groove mode. This is your standard mode of attacking each level, you see some goals in a little fly by cut-scene, and then head out until your groove meter runs out in a similar manner to the great âTony Hawkâs 4â. You maintain your groove by landing tricks, preferably with space for a few zeros in the score. In addition to the groove mode with its fancy things to be doing, there is a challenge mode that does what it says on the tin; you have specific challenges for each location that are unlocked by doing various things in the groove mode, such as hitting gaps and getting objectives. Once you get a certain percentage of the game you unlock the next level.
The levels themselves are some good-looking locations; from the Bayou to Venice there's a good variation in background scenery as well as style of playing. Nothing in the graphics will blow you away, well, that depends what the last best water effect you saw was. Our eyes have seen too much in the way of graphical lushness to be blown away too often these days.
Interestingly the PS2 version appears to have the edge over the Xbox version, sporting crisper textures that seem to feature more detail. Along with the fact that the Dual-Shock 2 controller was conceived for the Tony Hawk control system, making the PS2 version the superior out of the lot.
Wakeboarding Unleashed does have some great water though. The overall effect created by the wake that you make with the boat is brilliant. It is so satisfying to be pulling your mate along, and then cut across their path bringing a wake which launches them into the air, then you drag them up a ramp, onto a grind rail and, well, you should get the idea by now. Reflective and reactive are two good properties for water in a video game and Shabba Games have created water effects that are perfectly suited to the game. We do have slight issues with the fact that as good as the water looks when you are speeding along, when you slow down you'll notice that the waves don't dissipate as they do in real life. You don't get the feeling of carving up the whole surface of a lake in the same way that you did in WaveRace. That said you don't really miss that in this game, for the most part you are going so fast, and the camera is placed at such a distance, that you don't notice the more subtle bits of water not being there, rather you notice how that it looks like that boat is making a stupidly realistic wake. Job done as they say. Room for improvement we say, but we're harsh.
One final thing, well done to Shabba for putting good music in the game, obviously songs that the development team like, the included playlist really does go well with the game, not just put on for sake of big names. Its perhaps a little too guitar driven for some, but if you whack some decent hip hop and dance music onto your Xbox then you should balance things out.
