Get in the Groove

Summertime, and the water is nice! Activision and Shaba Studios have teamed up to bring us one of the nicest extreme water sports titles ever. The sport: pro wakeboarding. And, if you haven't heard of it before (too caught up in extreme motocross and extreme skateboarding and extreme bowling), imagine strapping yourself onto a small surfboard and getting pulled behind a powerful boat to do jumps and tricks off the boat's wake, off ski jumps, off sand bars, off rock walls, off houseboat rails …

Hey, we did say this was an extreme sports title.

This game is really on rails.

All right. Shaun Murray is like the Tony Hawk of wakeboarding, obviously, but the game offers you much more, in the way of seven distinct wakeboarding champions to choose from. All the boarders has their own unique moves and abilities, and they can all pull off a large variety of maneuvers, ranging from the simple to the very complex. You start the game with a tutorial and your first competitions on Lake Powell, a venue known for its rugged beauty and excellent water. From there, you can take your career on to any of 11 different locales, including Hong Kong harbor, which is visually stunning. You also have a decent selection of music to score your routines, so don't think the developers at Shaba forgot about the musicphiles among us.

In fact, I don't think they forgot much at all. Almost everything in the game is either an obstacle or a trick-inducing ramp, wall, or rail. Or all the above. You can certainly slam into the side of a houseboat or yacht, ending your ride in a most egregious fashion. However, a bit of skill, and you might also skate the side like any wall, or catch some air and grind the rail (presumably to the ultimate distress of the owner, but hey, who cares about him?).

Big water, big air, big points!

There are a few things which take Wakeboarding Unleashed™ Featuring Shaun Murray beyond the usual run of sports titles. The biggest, of course, being the rope physics engine, which controls your tether to the powerboat. In case you didn't think of it yet, what happens when you board beneath the pier or around the back side of a ramp? Well, you lose the rope. No rope, no more pulling power. That could be bad … except that the developers thought of that. They even thought of the fact that you might want to ditch your rope on purpose. Oh, you bet. There are places you can grind and ride your way into that the boat can't go, including a massive trick-stunt that takes you out of the water near an amusement park, jumping up onto the roller coaster and grinding the entire track before returning to the water.

Not bad, eh?

Fortunately, you can recall the rope with a simple command, and your buddies on the boat will throw it to you. It isn't always easy, but with some practice, the rope becomes an advantage and never a disability.

The other radical departure from standard sports titles is the Groove Meter. This is what you get instead of a timer. Rather than containing you with a short timed run, you get to stay out there for as long as you can entertain the judges. The Groove Meter ticks down, and you fill it back up again with radical stunts and cool tricks. So, if you stay in the groove, you stay on the water.

His Groove Meter is maxed.

If you're a sports player, extreme or otherwise, you are going to find something you will like in Activision's Wakeboarding Unleashed Featuring Shaun Murray. Try for some of the harder stunts, or bring in a friend to drive the boat for you in one of the few cooperative sport plays out there on any console. Play around with some lazy weekend fun, or follow a full career, but whatever you do, don't miss out on this one. You may regret it.

Jump in, man. The water's fine!

By Ben Barker