Wakeboarding Unleashed

Wow, a fun game involving warm weather, speed and water sports!

Wow, a fun game involving warm weather, speed and water sports! Skateboarding always struck me as a sport best reserved for colder weather when you can wear lots of heavy clothes for protection. Snowboarding is of course a winter activity and I hate snow. Wakeboarding! Yeah, e perfect sport for summertime fun. And Aspyr's new Wakeboarding Unleashed Featuring Shaun Murray is a great game to take to the beach when you leave the asphalt and snow behind.

Wakeboarding Unleashed Featuring Shaun Murray (WU) is the little brother of Activision's own Xbox and PS2 versions of WU. Aspyr Media took on the publishing duties for the GBA title, but its lineage is still very much apparent.

Like other extreme sports games, such as Tony Hawks, doing tricks is the star of the show, so controls for doing tricks must be solid … and WU's are. The basic controls are the directional pad for left and right movement, B to jump and grind, the A button for grab tricks, the R button for flip tricks, the A and R in conjunction with the D-pad for air tricks, L to switch the rider's stance on the board, and the forward and back positions on the D-pad to do the combo-bridging "manual" move. It only takes a short time to master these simple controls and the player will be pulling off some great looking tricks. Of course the big scores come from stringing the tricks together in combos. That takes a bit longer to master.

Several modes await the player. The tutorial does a great job of teaching the basics of the wakeboarding set of tricks. Single Session gives the player a timed run to just get the lay of the courses and bust some moves for practice. Career is the main mode and challenges the player to compete in events in which he'll complete objectives and earn medals. Balloon Burst, a particularly challenging option, is a run through a course with 24 colored balloons that must be popped by doing tricks. Three multiplayer modes are also available: Balloon Burst, Trick Attack and HORSE.

The game offers six different courses (with a hint that there are more to unlock) and seven wakeboarding personalities, including Shaun Murray. The courses are well designed with enough variety to keep them interesting … within the limitations of the GBA that is. All the wakeboarders have a signature move or two that makes each fun to master.

Graphics are fluid and easy on the eyes. The water looks cool and inviting. Small annoying things like the wakeboarders seemingly going through solid objects occurs now and then, but it never rises to the level of a major annoyance.

Sound matches the action well and draws the player in nicely. The boat has a great rumble to it as it catches the water starting off.

It is nice to note that Aspyr sprang for the battery backup save. All too often companies try to save a buck or two and leave this very nifty cartridge feature out. (You might as well have a CD ROM if there is no battery backup in the cart.)

One of the things that isn't in the official rating stats is my own "grin factor." Well, the Will Hill grin factor was up to about an 8.5. I just had to smile playing this game. When I pulled off a good trick combo it was satisfying. When I took a spill I knew why and did not feel some arbitrary game god had struck me down for no reason. Wakeboarding Unleashed Featuring Shaun Murray is a fun, solidly-built game that should be in anyone's pack for take-along summer play.