Shaun White Snowboarding Hands-on Preview

Snowboarding isn’t the easiest of sports to get into. You need need decent physical fitness, a board, a slope (snow covered or artificial) and strong bones. You can’t just pick it up on a whim and hope to go speeding down a mountain, cameras flashing as you glide through the air pulling off radical moves… or can you? Ubisoft Montreal is hoping to achieve exactly this with Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip on Wii.

The key to Ubisoft’s Wii snowboarding title is the Wii Balance Board. By taking advantage of the pressure sensitive slab players will actually feel like they’re the real deal, moving their body weight to pull off jumps, spins, and grabs as they carve their rider through the snowy peaks. Shoes off, I jumped on board the erm… board to see just why the French journalist before me had left the demo room with a broad smile on his face.

Sat atop a mountain I was told to rock the board back and forth and sure enough my chosen rider took the hint and began his decent. Leaning towards the front of the board made the rider go faster, back slowed him down, while moving my weight to either side made him turn – by holding the B button it’s also possible to perform tighter turns by carving through the snow. Things were going well, save for a few trees and boulders that got in the way, but importantly it felt right, like I was actually in control. Shortly into the run a ramp gave me my first chance for big air. Approaching I crouched down like a coiled spring and as the rider was about to leave the ramp I sprang up onto my toes launching the rider into the air. To land without bailing it’s important to get the rider’s board lined up, something easier said than done when you’re fighting to maintain balance and not go crashing into members of the Ubisoft PR team.

The first run out of the way it was straight back for another go and, just as the friendly Ubisoft PR lady had told me, it was much easier. No longer was I speeding almost uncontrollably down a mountain, crashing into obstacles and missing almost all big air opportunities. It wasn’t graceful, but I was getting the job done and even had the confidence to throw in some mid-air grabs by holding combinations of the A and B buttons (front/back/both).

After getting the basics down there was just enough time to sample the game’s Half-Pipe mode. As a huge fan of 1080 on the N64, in particular its Half-Pipe mode, I was raring to go. While it was possible to get away with some dodgy landings and general lack of skill on the mountain run, the Half-Pipe proved very punishing. It requires almost constant weight distribution, as you aim to move your rider from side to side while also ensuring you leap into the air at the pipe’s edge, grab the board, spin and nail the landing. It was hard, but come my third and fourth attempts I was able make clean runs complete with multiple tricks. Sure it was difficult at first, but at least there appears to be plenty for the hardcore gamer to learn. If we wanted basic there’d be no reason to try anything outside the winter sports games in Wii Fit.

Ubisoft hasn’t forgotten about Wii owners without a Wii Board; Shaun White on Wii will also ship with a Wii Remote and Nunchuck control system which uses a mix of motion and button presses. It’s clear though that you’ll want a Wii Board in order to get the most from Shaun White.

As Wii titles go it’s also looking pretty good. It’s not using the Assassin’s Creed game engine of its Xbox 360 and PS3 cousins, but it has a certain charm, with bigger and bolder visuals reminiscent of Sony’s Cool Borders PlayStation series. There’ll be plenty to get on with too, with five mountains to master in the World Tour mode, culminating at Park City where you’ll meet Shaun White. There’s also a host of multiplayer modes including story co-op, split-screen versus and hot-seat.

15 minutes on the Wii Board wasn’t enough to make any solid judgements on the overall experience Shaun White will offer on Wii, but early impressions point towards a casual friendly title that will also provide a real challenge for gamers willing to invest time learning the intricacies. People often tell me that I don’t smile, indeed I left the Shaun White demo room as plain-faced as usual, but that doesn’t mean my time with the game wasn’t fun. It was. So much so that it’s shot from my pile of “must avoid gimmicky Wii titles” to one I’m genuinely looking forward to playing come its November release.