Foregoing a razzle-dazzle introduction where I try to impress you
with all of the surfing vernacular can think of, I will start with a simple, declarative
sentence: I am the target audience for Surfing H30. I live in Lewiston, Idaho; I am
surrounded by beautiful mountains that are perfect for skiing and snowboarding; I even
have access to a couple of functional, if unimpressive, skateboard parks. In the realm of
board and rider games, these are a tangible reality for me. But, as you would expect, I
have no place to surf. I have never surfed in my life, and I may never surf. So, when
Rockstar boasted that it had created a surfing experience on the PS2 with "next
generation wave modeling physics, " "epic waves," and aerial tricks and
combos, I got excited. Then I got disappointed. Surfing H30 functions strictly within
the rules set by all the other board and rider games before it. You know the drill: a
quick, exciting FMV opens the game and pumps you up, you pick your character, listen to
their sassy and repetitive banter, choose a board, a level, tolerate the announcer that
praises your best stunts and makes fun of you when you fall down, and all the while you
ride, ride, ride, brains and bones be damned. Nothing wrong with that.
The graphics
and sound are good, but do little in the way of innovation. The character models are large
and detailed; there are plenty of tattoos and skimpy bikini tops to go around. The
backgrounds are fresh and vibrant. The game carries a spry ska soundtrack, the voices are
quirky, the thuds and splashes sound like thuds and splashes. But then there are those
waves. This is Surfing H30s tour de force. Great, tumultuous torrents, these are the
most impressive 3D waves ever rendered on a console. The textures are fluid, the water
foams and undulates. The lighting effects are spectacular, especially as you enter the
tube. And the roar overwhelms all other sound effects in the game. The wake effects suffer
a bit when they overlap, and have a tendency to clip into the rider, but this is
tolerable.
The game comes out of the gates well enough. A bit of the old, a bit of the
newall par for a first generation title on any console. But any sports related video
game relies on gameplay for replay value, hell any kind of playability at all, and this is
where Surfing H30 stumbles all over itself.
First of all, there are only two options for gameplay available: Tournament and Versus.
Tournament is the usual forum where you work your way through the levels, complete goals,
hone your skills, and unlock all the hidden stuff. Only in this case, there are only six
levels, about a dozen tricks to master, and the only extra game options to unlock are
harder difficulty settings. And because there are no discernable differences between one
character and another, one surfboard and another, other than appearance, the game
doesnt get much more exciting than that. Add this to the fact that I beat the
default setting in less than a half-hour, completing most of the goals and achieving the
top score, and you have a very shallow game. The Versus option is an alternating setup
where you compete for the best time and score, rather than a head-to-head grudgematch, so
dont expect a lot of oohs and aahs there either. I know you would have
to stretch a bit to get a head-to-head venue out of surfing, but at least they could have
set the competition side-by-side so that you could feel the heat.
Second,
although the control system is simple, the fun parts of the game are made frustrating by
serious camera issues. In fact, I can see no logic in how the camera works at all. At
times it is right behind you where it belongs. But then, without warning, it will jump in
front of you while you are in the tube, or spin around you while you are performing an
aerial maneuver, which affects the way you control your rider, and the way you land. More
often than not, this will be the reason you end up swimming instead of surfing. And there
is little you can do about it in the thick of things.
Finally, there is the game killer. Most sports games handle their gameplay in one of
two ways: the over the top, exaggerated, all-for-fun arcade approach; or the strict,
realistic sim approach. If you look at Surfing H30s PS2 competition, you have SSX
(arcade) on the one hand, and ESPN X Games Snowboarding (sim) on the other. Surfing H30
opts for neither. Rather than focusing on the skills of your rider, or the nuances of
different surfboards and different conditions (as I said before, there are none), the
primary goal of this game is to swerve around and collect glowing orbs for points. Sure,
tubes and tricks will increase your score as well, but the emphasis is on the orbs. Also,
and I will be the first to admit that I am not a mathematician or a genius of physics, but
I dont get a feeling of genuine wave mechanics or speed or authentic surfboard
control at all in this game. After all, those waves, as big and wonderful as they are,
seem to have an endless crest and are, in the end, choreographed and predictable. So, why
have the programmers made even the simplest of tricks so hard to pull off? The ability to
pull off a simple mute, method, or indy without a headache would have greatly enhanced the
whole experience. And that little surfboard that you can attach to the analog joysticks of
the PS2s controllers? Pure novelty. Sure, it kind of helps you visualize the moves
and coordinate your thumb movements, but you should be able to do that anyway.
What Surfing H30 boils down to is a shallow game that adheres to all of the limitations
of its genre, while ignoring the core elements that made the genre popular. If you want to
ride a board and go nuts, pick up SSX or Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2, ignore this
watered down version. Much like last summers popcorn flick, The Perfect Storm,
the most lifelike character in Surfing H30 is the wave itself, and once youve seen
it crash a couple of times thats it, you are just waiting for the damn people to die
so you can get up and leave.