Snowboarding games, to me, may well be the only kind of sports game that makes just a little less sense than skateboarding games. Oh, sure, when you snowboard you get to wear a lot of thick winter gear which functions as padding, and you’ll also be falling into snow, which is just a kind of cold padding. But then again, I’ve really never heard of anyone who either froze to death or got buried alive while skateboarding. And these are two very real dangers of snowboarding. One word: avalanche.
So when I latched on to a copy of Shaun White Snowboarding, now available for the Xbox 360, the Playstation 3, PC and PSP, I wasn’t all that sure what to think. See, it’s not like this game has a whole lot of plot to it. You’ll play a snowboarder who launches through a series of challenges like slalom racing, and straight out races, and other kinds of snowboarding fun, as well as an opportunity to sail down some very nicely set up courses and do tricks and flips and whatnot. Playing the challenges allows you to get cash to trick out your board and gear, and you’ll also get to advance to different kinds of courses, like mountain peaks, back country hills, parks, and of course, Target Mountain, which is basically just one giant commercial for Target, assuming you bought your game at Target. The best kick in the teeth about the Target Mountain pack is that it costs more than the regular, so you’ll basically be paying Target a premium to advertise itself to you.
That particular kick to the teeth aside, Shaun White Snowboarding really surprised me. I had a surprising quantity of fun throwing myself down a mountain to a positively outstanding funk soundtrack comprised of songs like “Play That Funky Music”. Tricks weren’t terribly difficult to pull off, and it did a really nice job of capturing the feeling of speed as you go flying down a mountain with a chunk of fiberglass strapped to your feet. I actually managed to blow a lot of time just cruising down the various mountains, sliding in and out of the pine trees, jumping off ramps and wood piles and houses and suchlike…there’s plenty to do here, and you’ll probably be able to enjoy it repeatedly, giving it all sorts of replay value.
Okay, granted—if you like to have a storyline when you play your games, then Shaun White Snowboarding’s miserable attempt at a plot is going to be a spectacular joke to you. There’s only so much narrative value in “improve as a snowboarder and travel to various locales where you’ll continue trying to improve as a snowboarder”. As for action, it’s also in pretty short supply here, because you’re basically playing a sports game. While you’ll get to chuck snowballs at your fellow racers when you’re in the Death Race portion of the game, you’ll never lay hands on, say, a shotgun or a chainsaw. And I’m sorry, but I think being able to handle a chainsaw or shotgun would just up the awesome factor of a snowboarding game like a million percent.
The key point to take away from all this is that you’re snowboarding. If you like the feeling of speed and the exhilaration of gravity as you take a long drop off a mountain with nothing between you and a shattered spinal column but sheer momentum and a hunk of fiberglass. They did a solid job with it, but there’s only so much you CAN do with it by dint of the material itself. If you’re okay with the inherent limitations of the source material, then you’ll love this game.
