Back when Ubisoft was still doing Ubidays in America, I got a chance to check out the first Shaun White Snowboarding game. I really loved what they were doing with the game on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but wasn’t all that impressed with the Wii version.
Shaun White Snowboarding: World Tour changes the formula up a little bit in the sequel and I dug what I saw of it while at Ubisoft San Francisco last week. Hit the break to see what’s changed in the sequel.
Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage (Wii)
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Publishor: Ubisoft
To be released: Winter, 2009
A snowboarder tends to hang out at airports a lot and that’s where the HUB world of Shaun White is located. Snowboarders travel the world a lot to find the best snow and you’ll be going to eight different countries in World Tour. There’s going to be over 25 slopes located in places like Japan, Paris, London, New York, San Francisco and more.
This time around, you can get help from a buddy through the game’s local two-player support. Your buddy can jump in and out at any time so you won’t have to start a new game every time a friend wants to play. There will also be four-player local versus mode.
You’ll have some freedom when it comes to the game’s campaign. You’ll have multiple choices on where to go during each week of the game’s campaign. Courses will also vary from being a straight race course to a course designed so the player does a lot of tricks. There will be up to 35 tricks that can be performed and doing tricks will fill up a special meter that can be used to give you a speed boost.
I played World Tour using the Balance Board and found it a little hard to get used to, but that’s mostly because I’ve rarely used the Balance Board in the first place. Move right by putting weight on your toes, move left by putting weight on your heals, gain speed by putting weight on the front of your legs, jump by pressing down at the Balance Board and you can rotate in the air by putting weight on your legs or feet. You’ll also use the Wiimote with the Balance Board to grab your board by pressing the A and B buttons.
While in my first race, I got used to the controls pretty fast. In fact, I got first place in the race. Doing the trick course was a whole different story though and I couldn’t pull off a single trick.
As for everything else, there’s a soundtrack that you can cycle through with some awesome licensed music, you can win gear and customize your clothing, there will be online leaderboards, in game achievements and support for the Wii MotionPlus.
Overall, it was a pretty fun ride. The visuals were a little unappealing but the controls were good. Now how about a sequel for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Ubisoft?
