Shaun White Snowboarding Road Trip
Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip for Nintendo Wii introduces a whole new way of playing snowboarding games. Developed by Ubisoft, Shaun White Snowboarding was developed from the ground up to take advantage of the Wii Balance Board, giving you an experience that is more intuitive, realistic, and fun.
Land your favorite tricks in combination for the ultimate score. View larger. |
You can ride on mountains all over the world, including in Japan. View larger. |
Hop Onto the Wii Balance Board for a Realistic Experience
The Wii Balance Board is an accessory from Nintendo that works and is shaped like an elongated scale, with sensors that can tell how much and where pressure is applied when you stand on it. This works perfectly with Shaun White Snowboarding, as it can detect whether you are leaning forward, back, left, or right, and it reacts like a real snowboard would.
The Wii Balance Board gives you an unprecedented, realistic experience. View larger. |
To jump, you quickly shift your weight to the balls of your feet, and while in the air, you tap the A or B buttons and lean left and right to grab the board and spin, respectively. A multitude of tricks are available for you to learn, and chaining them together lets you amass more points. As you do tricks, a small little icon shows up on the screen to let you know what you did. For example, if you do a 720-degree turn called a “melon,” a little watermelon slice will show up on screen.
If you would rather forego the Balance Board, you can play with just the Wii Remote as well.
Beautiful Graphics with Unique Camera System
Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip features a unique camera system, where you can choose different cameramen and camerawomen to follow you around. Some are better for tricks and others for speed, so be sure to pick the right one, as they’ll give you abilities during your ride.
As the cameraperson follows you on your ride, you’ll notice different effects, such as image blurs around the edges of the screen to give a sense of speed. The camera will collect snow when you fall, and sometimes the camera will white out after completing a big jump, as the cameraperson has to follow you and do the same moves as well. This unique system adds another element of strategy and fun to the game.
Tour the World with Shaun White
Road Trip begins with you as a newcomer to the snowboarding scene. Shaun White serves as your mentor, and together you travel the world, tackling mountains and making friends as you work your way up to becoming the world’s best snowboarder.
As you win competitions and meet new people, they’ll show you new tricks and special abilities that will help you against the competition. You’ll have to learn different snowboarding skills as you compete in races down a mountain, half-pipe events, slaloms, rail jams, and more. You can also take a breather and just free ride in the back country at your own pace.
Play With or Against Your Friends
Road Trip doesn’t have online multiplayer options, but you can play both competitively and cooperatively with a friend on a split screen. In competitive mode, you and a friend can race to the bottom or try to out-trick each other for the highest score. In cooperative mode, both of you ride down the same slope, and the scores are added together. The entire game can be played cooperatively, so you and a friend can tour the world together and unlock new extras.
User Ratings and Reviews
3 Stars ok, but not used much
bought this when we bought our wii. both husband and daughter would rather play mario kart than this game. Not too engaging.
4 Stars D’s Review!
My family and I have a lot of fun playing this game. We have fun laughing at each other when we “go through the trees” but jumping off of the ledges are the funniest. The boys love mimicking our stances.
4 Stars Fun game.
Fun game for the Wii if you have a balance board. Subtract a star or two if you don’t. Could be more to it, but fun all the same.
2 Stars disappointing
The snowboarding is not as much fun and not as much of a workout as I expected. It gets kind of boring after the first 10 minutes. Interface is a bit clumsy. My disc got stick (froze) a few times already. Obnoxious 15-year old comments during your rides.
4 Stars Addicting!
This game is a ton of fun when played using the Wii balance board, but it is really hard to learn. It took me a good handful of times playing before I got used to how to do the jumps, manuevers and other actions. I’ve played a lot of times and still am not that great at it, but its well worth the money. I am a huge fan of snowboarding in real life and this gives you a pretty good feel as to what it’s like to snowboard. The graphics are pretty good, but one downside I’ve noticed is that even though I haven’t been playing this for very long I have nearly beat the entire game, which is a bit of a disappointment. You can still go back and improve on your scores, but I was hoping there would be more countries to explore. Overall a great game and a ton of fun, but it will take some getting used to. It’s not one of those games you can just jump right into and be a pro at, it definitely takes practice.
