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Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage

by Jared Rosenberg - June 7, 2009, 2:39 pm EDT
Total comments: 3

The Shaun White sequel controlled wonderfully and had some great snow effects. Come watch a video of the new game in motion.

The success of Wii Fit has brought millions of Balance Boards into the homes of people across the world. Strangely, the number of games supporting the peripheral is still pretty low. Thankfully, Ubisoft will be giving players a great reason to get on their Balance Boards when Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage comes out this fall.

My playtime with Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage on the E3 show floor was my first experience with the snowboarding series. Before starting the demo, I carefully stepped sideways onto the Wii Balance Board and pretended I was on a real snowboard. The game starts out in an airport displaying Shaun White and others lounging about. The airport acts as a hub from which players can select levels by aiming their Wii Remote at the departures screen.

I chose the time attack mode and quickly found my in-game character at the top of a mountain. Using the Balance Board to steer was very intuitive. You steer by carefully leaning left and right with your back foot. Gaining speed is as simple as leaning forward with your front foot. A small photo of the Balance Board lies in the left hand corner of the screen displaying how much you are leaning in each direction. When you want to jump all you need to do is bend your knees a little and then quickly straighten them. Racing down the mountain was very enjoyable and my in-game character was responding perfectly to my movements.

In the demo, I frequently found myself passing rails, which I could hop on if I steered my board right at them. Once on top of a rail you could balance by shifting your weight, which was reminiscent of a balancing in a Tony Hawk game. To pull off tricks in the air you needed to hold the A and B buttons and then lean in different directions on the Balance Board.

The trick mode level I tried out was very cool. I was on a very long half-pipe that was sitting in the middle of New York’s Times Square. I’ll admit I had some trouble pulling off tricks, but that may have been because of my complete unfamiliarity with what body movements triggered certain tricks. The graphics for entire demo looked great, but this stage in particular was very impressive looking with the bright lights and billboards in the background.

The completed game will have online leaderboards and an achievement system to unlock new snowboarding gear. The Ubisoft representative said that the new game will have a lot more activities than the previous game in the series.

The demo on display had a very fun arcade feel and hopefully the completed version will have a lot more depth than any normal arcade game could possibly have.




TYP rides down the hill.



Talkback

I enjoyed the first one, but I hope that the sequel is a lot better. I've got faith in this.

BruceBalanceNovember 13, 2009

I'm curious, now that this is out, what are people's thoughts on this game?

NinGurl69 *hugglesNovember 13, 2009

I still need to play the first one on my board.

D=

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Genre Sports
Developer Ubisoft

Worldwide Releases

na: Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage
Release Q4 2009
PublisherUbisoft
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