Shaun White Skateboarding

I remember, growing up spending countless hours on the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater franchise.

From the free roam aspect of being able to skate how you want in the level, to pulling off ambitious, death defying tricks only to see your character hit the dirt in a manner that would have killed them outright in real life to have attempted something so ridiculous. But then, you see them in real life do these stunts and wonder just how they pulled it off and didn't have to bail out prematurely without serious issues.

Then along comes Shaun White in 2010 with a game, partnered with Ubisoft, trying to capitalise on the capitulation of the THPS franchise. Now, I cannot comment on anything post THPS4 as I have limited exposure, if any, to those games. So I'll stick to what I do best and that's review a game I am playing.

The Review

I picked this up some time ago and played it briefly, only to let it sink into forgotten places that is my vast videogame collection. Dusting it off whilst in the middle of an extended PC gaming hiatus, I thought "you know what? I'll play that skateboarding game I've got that isn't Tony Hawk!".

My initial impressions are that it's the kind of videogame one might play if intimidated by the intricacies of Skate's analogue control scheme, or overwhelmed by the sheer number of options where to jump into the THPS franchise.

It's like THPS, for dummies.

Or amateurs.

Those who want a skateboarding experience but don't want to spend ages learning enough controls so they're not penalised for using the same tricks all the time. That was the challenge of THPS; learning enough tricks so that the game didn't punish you too much like it does by rewarding you less and less points for the same trick appearing in your routine. Although it could be quite brutal, before 4 where they gave you the option to bail, to see a trick set go spectacularly wrong.

This is where Skate 3 would capitalise upon that desire to cause destruction to your skater by allowing you, the player, to try the Hall of Meat challenges where you were supposed to crash your skater to see how many broken bones you'd get and then award you points a la the excellent Turbo Dismount!

Granted what worked for THPS is the sheer variety of locations (who's going to forget the school in the second THPS? Or the warehouse in number one?) that all felt apart from one another. Something that seems to be a staple if a game is going to have longevity; does the game have enough content to keep you coming back?

For Shaun White Skateboarding, emphasis seems less on pushing yourself to the absolute limits so you can rack up stupidly complex combos, and more on creating a flow, or "influence", similar to Skate's soundtrack that only kicked in the better you did as a skater.

The "influence", as it's called in this game affects the level around you with certain highlighted zones responding and transforming when you pull off a basic kickflip, whereas others seemed to aim for you ending your trick series there before they would transform. These "transformations" would come in the form of vert pipes appearing against the walls, or bumps rising up in the road allowing you to transfer tricks together leaping from rail to road and back to rail that you can mould as you go along.

And that's not counting the green mouldable floors and vert pipes that are intangible until you ride them and they curve to completion.

These "mouldable" items are something are where, naturally, the game starts to leave realism behind, though admittedly it's pretty clear from the get go that this game is not intended as a simulation of the skateboarding kind. Just jump off your skateboard with either Y or triangle and watch the way the character runs; it's like he's about to drop a hot dookie and needs to find privacy quick!

Also, the trick system is noticeably different to either Skate or THPS in that you have to "buy" the tricks, thankfully before mtx became the virulent ever-presence they are in so many videogames these days. Your points you earned in a run can be traded in to unlock new tricks and grabs where a helpful popup controller would show you how to perform the trick with another popup showing you what the trick should look like.

Yes, one of the major selling points is that this game allows you to get off the skateboard, something that I don't think was possible until the later THPS games, and you'll need it because the collision detection isn't the friendliest when you're trying to line up a precise run at a series off obstacles to trick off of.

The story is just, meh, and revolves around the idea that any expression that hasn't been chosen by the Ministry is outlawed. You, as a skater are tasked with bringing life back into the game world by bucking the trend, rebelling against the system and pulling off sick tricks.

Just like skaters in real life then, huh?

The problem is that the almost paper-thin plot of rescuing Shaun who's been kidnapped by the Ministry for "reinstating" into society exists purely as a vehicle to get you from one section of the game to the next. Sure it starts off in a cool greyscale-type palette with colour, and graffiti, filling in the game world for each trick or series of tricks you land but the plot is rather pointless. Get this, at one point you are even trying to outrun a laser helicopter...

I'm not kidding you!

The constant switch between full speed and slow motion is jarring and they end up making it more difficult, not less, to line up the desired grind before insta-fail and you have to do the section all over. Luckily it's saved by reasonably generous checkpoints so if you fail you should know what not to do next time. Even if it does give you no time to react and ends up becoming pattern recognition to beat.

It's a shame that this game struggles from the issues it does because this game is certainly fun to play in measure. The frustrations come when you collide with these issues causing an objective to become a lot more difficult than the game's mission dedign actually should warrant. You'll constantly find yourself fighting to avoid bouncing off of objects you are trying to get past ruining an otherwise great line to run up a cool trickset focrimg you to have to set yourself up all over again.

And that's when you're not fighting the camera!

Oooh boy, is the default (and seemingly only!) camera angle awful tight against your character something of a doozy, I can guarantee it will cause you to miss the line for tricks you would have made had you been able to see the level properly!

The Conclusion

For all it's foibles and frustrations, this game is an incredibly fun game to play. Just not for prolonged periods as you'll fly face first into a wall of frustration because you've either been fighting the camera system or the collision detection has unrealistically bounced you out of line of a run that was perfect from a standing start.

It's a shame this didn't sell particularly great, at 120,000 globally, because it's a damn fun game to play. It's also damn frustrating and jank with it's control scheme meaning that I just cannot play it for too long as these frustrations get in the way of my enjoyment.

I've no time for that these days after destroying three games in fairly quick succession lately as an unhelpful, and unhealthy, response to bad videogame design. I've no time for bad videogames and you shouldn't too as your time is too precious to waste.

Is this videogame a waste of that time? I'll leave my words as evidence of what I've found so make your own judgement call.

Stay tuned everyone because I've got at least another two reviews in the pipelines to come in the days ahead.

Peace!

===TLP===