Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip. Nintendo Wii
Being a big fan of snowboarding, I usually end up buying as many snowboarding games as I possibly can. My most recent purchase was a pre-owned copy of Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip for the Nintendo Wii.


Shaun White Snowboarding comes in a normal white Wii box, the size of a DVD case, contained inside the box is a game disc along with an instruction manual for the game. The game instruction manual is written in English and is clear and simple to follow, although I haven't actually needed to use it.


Beginning the game with a short video you are introduced to the main characters in the game sitting in a hospital room after a friend has had a snowboarding accident, suddenly a phone rings and the hospitalised friend is forgotten about as on the other end of the phone is the one and only Shaun White inviting you on an around the world snowboarding road trip. Obviously this is the coolest idea ever and you head off to Canada to begin your snowboarding adventures.

The game is based in the settings of real mountains and for each mountain range which you visit you will need to complete certain goals to win event tickets and progress further on your road trip. Goals include things like finishing a slope within a certain time limit, collecting a specific number of crowns or trash cans and performing tricks to achieve a minimum amount of points.

Performing the tricks is surprisingly easy! During the first couple of challenges in the game you are given a kind of mini tutorial of how to do tricks and certain manoeuvres, after this you are left to your own devices to see what you come up with. Most of the tricks are accomplished by waving your wii remote around and pressing the A and/or B buttons and then making sure you have your snowboarder level on his or her board before landing, to me this is the hardest part of the controls and I have lost count of how many times my snowboarder has ended up crashing and covered in snow!

In general the controls of the game are easy, even if you haven't played a snowboarding game in the past I think these controls would be pretty simple to pick up quite fast... If you can hold a wii remote and wave it around while pressing a few buttons then you can control this game!

I have had this game for around 3 weeks, which I know doesn't sound long to be reviewing it already, however in these few weeks I have played the game rather a lot and have progressed really far. I have found the challenges set to be really easy and as a result of this I have won a lot of event tickets and progressed from Canada through Chile and I am currently in Switzerland. The challenges I always find the hardest to complete are the time challenges and to do these I have worked out that you need to concentrate on simply getting to the bottom of the slope performing no tricks or jumps along the way. In my opinion this makes these challenges the most boring as I really enjoy doing tricks and waving my remote around.

In total, according to the Wii's timing of how long you are on a game, I have so far spent almost 37 hours playing Shaun White and I still feel like I have many more hours left to play!


Menu's and Screen Navigation
The menus in Shaun White are simple to navigate around, you simply point the Wii remote at the screen and click on what you want to do. The main menu screen which you will use in the game is designed like a map and you need to click on the country you want to go to. Bearing in mind you can only travel to new countries if you have completed challenges and unlocked them.

There are occasional videos thrown into the game which I personally skip as I don't find them interesting but if you want to follow the story of the road trip then you may enjoy watching them.

Loading time between screens is minimal and literally only a few seconds, just enough time to take a sip of a drink while you wait.


Graphics
The game play and graphics are really smooth and the sound effects of the board on the snow are actually really realistic, especially when you go over a patch of ice, it's almost like the real thing. The animations of the boarders are good but not as good as some of the newer snowboarding games. The faces of the boarders sometimes seem a bit distorted but in general you don't really notice this too much.

The mountains and the scenery are generally really good and smooth, there are a couple of distortions but I have only really noticed these when I was watching someone else play, I've never noticed them when I play as I'm usually too busy concentrating on trying to land a trick!


Soundtrack
The soundtrack in the game is really good and contains a variety of songs I would enjoy listening to when snowboarding in real life, I haven't identified all of the artists on the soundtrack, but I know there are a couple of Faithless tracks on there. The volume of the music can be adjusted if you wish, but I find that the default volume is just right for me.


Balance Board Compatible
Shaun White Snowboarding is balance board compatible, however as my balance board lives at my mum's house with my little brother I have not tried this method of control yet. From what I have briefly looked at in the instruction manual though it does look really good so hopefully I will get to try this too.


Multiplayer
There is a multiplayer mode, however as I currently only have one Wii remote we havent played this much. I had a quick go with my brother when I was visiting the UK and it was basically the same as single player but in split screen mode and earning medals based on your performance. In the multiplayer mode you can have upto 4 players if you have enough Wii remotes.


Price and Availability
I bought Shaun White Snowboarding from Gamestation for £7.99 pre-owned, which I think is a great price, especially when you think of how much game time I am getting from this.


Recommended?
I love snowboarding and I love snowboarding games so yes I would highly recommend Shaun White Snowboarding, especially as it is now available at such a great price if you don't mind having a pre-owned one. It's easy to play and I would say suitable for all ages (the box says 3+).

5 Stars from me!


Thanks for reading :)