Reviewed: August 17, 2003
Reviewed by: Travis Young

Publisher
Activision

Developer
Shaba Studios

Released: June 3, 2003
Genre: Sports
Players: 2
ESRB: Everyone

9
9
9
9
9.2

Supported Features

Congratulations to Activision and Shaba Studios for releasing not only one of the most original extreme sports titles in history, but also managing to capture the very essence of the sport on which it is based and keep the game fun and reasonably simple to play while challenging to master. The only way this game could be more real was if it came with an actual wakeboard controller similar to the ThrustMaster FreeStyler Board.

Some of you probably have some initial questions like “What is wakeboarding?” and “Who is Shaun Murray?” Wakeboarding is similar to slalom skiing (one ski) but you use a wakeboard rather than a ski. A wakeboard is similar in size and shape to a snowboard and you ride it like a ski by getting pulled around by the towboat then ripping off tricks by catching air off the wake generated by the boat in front of you.

As for Shaun Murray, don’t feel bad if you don’t know who he is. Wakeboarding and the mega-stars behind the sport are still relatively unknown thanks to a lack of televised coverage. Shaun is the “Tony Hawk” of wakeboarding, two-time world champion and nicknamed, “House of Style”. Don’t take my word for it – watch the opening movie.

Shaun is joined by six of his all-star wakeboarding friends including Parks Bonifay, Dallas Friday, Tara Hamilton, Cobe Mikacich, Darin Shapiro and Colin Wright. Each pro comes to the sport from a unique background and offers their own signature style and tricks to the sport.

First of all the game is on water which creates all sorts of subtle gameplay issues you normally don’t have with land-based games. You actually have to learn the way your boarder moves and how to increase speed and slingshot around turns or how to cut in sharp to cross back over your own wake for maximum jumping height and trick potential.

Since you are being towed your trick path is often out of your control and quite linear. This means you will need to learn every intricacy of every course to capitalize on the various ramps and verts given to you. This isn’t to say you can go off exploring on your own.

Wakeboarding Unleashed gives you the very cool ability to release the towline at your discretion and move off in a totally different path than the boat. Naturally your momentum will start to bleed off as you skip across the water or grind some hidden rail, so your ultimate goal is to find places to take these rope-less detours but still allow you to get back in range of the boat and have them toss you the line. There is even a directional finder that shows you the direction and distance to your boat.

Controls are rock solid and identical to those found in Tony Hawk. You have all the fundamental moves like grabs, inverts, grinds, reverts, and even manuals. All of these building blocks can be used to chain together incredible trick lines that can easily reach millions of points per line. The learning curve is surprisingly high in this game, even for a Hawk veteran such as myself. There is something about the wave dynamics and being dragged along by a boat that just puts a whole new spin on the extreme sports genre.

You have no direct control over the path the boat will take and if you just sit back you will make the same circle over and over again. That’s not to say you cannot manipulate the boat into taking a new path. Once you learn the lay of the land you can figure out precisely where to release the rope and take your own course. The boat will try to join you and often you can get it to switch to an alternate path through the level.

There is a very nice tutorial mode that gets you started with all the basics and I highly recommend taking just the boat out for a spin to learn each course as you unlock it. There is even something a bit relaxing about cruising around the lakes and waterways without the pressure of points and timers.

There is a staggering amount of content lurking on the Wakeboarding Unleashed disc. The career mode is massive and consists of objectives, challenges and gaps. These are presented in a checklist format (similar to just about every other extreme sports game) and you do as many as you can on each run. Rather than a conventional timer you have your Groove Meter. As you do tricks and stunts the meter will fill and when you aren’t it will slowly diminish. As long as you can keep your groove alive you can keep playing, so unless you have a string of wipeouts or some very bad luck the timer should never really influence your game.

Each level has several Groove Objectives and when completed these will open up new challenges or interactive objects within the level. The challenges are often more difficult than the objectives and some even have you driving the boat. There are also dozens of gaps in each level. Some are obvious but most of them require a clue. By completing one gap you earn a Gap Key – this is a video clue as to the location of another gap, of course knowing where it is and actually getting to it and tricking across it are two separate issues.

As you might expect, most of the content in this game is locked down and you will need to start checking off objectives in the career mode to open up new levels. There are 11 stunning levels to explore, each with their own theme and environment, and many of the challenges and objectives are tied into these themes.

I was most impressed with the objective and challenge design and how it flowed with the levels. Often in games like this (normally the ones on actual timers) I will plan to do one or two objectives then make my next run and do another few. Wakeboarding Unleashed is designed so that with some average skill you can do several objectives each lap and keep your Groove Meter filled enough to keep going. While I never did an entire checklist (Attack Sheet) in one continuous run I came close a few times.

There is an innovative two-player cooperative mode where one player drives the boat and the other is on the wakeboard. Not only does this give you total control over the game but the designers have added fresh content (new ramps and rails) for both the driver and the wakeboarder. I had high hopes for this feature but it turned out the camera just doesn’t work well trying to satisfy the needs of both driver and wakeboarder. It’s one of those deals where you could probably master cooperative play or solo play but switching between them really screws you up.

Of course there are some head-to-head two-player modes including Tug-O-War, Trick Attack, and HORSE. Tug-O-War is probably one of the most ingenious two-player games ever devised. Basically as one player performs stunts the other player’s rope gets shorter. The first person to run out of rope loses.

Trick Attack is the standard timed run and whoever has the most trick points wins while HORSE is the traditional copycat game where one player does a trick and the other must match or exceed it or get a letter. To add some pressure you are on a six-second timer.

With all of the great single and multiplayer content jammed into this game, Wakeboarding Unleashed is going to keep you busy for a long time. The learning curve is steep but the rewarding gameplay is worth it.

Realistic water seems to be the benchmark of any next-gen game these days and when your game is based entirely on water you had better bring something remarkable to the table. Shaba was more than up for the challenge and not only have they delivered the best looking water, it is also the most physically accurate recreation of the substance I have ever seen in any video game. The ripple effects and the wake generation are phenomenal and since it follows the rules of real life physics you can learn to predict and use the wake to attain incredible (and often unrealistic) air.

The levels are populated with plenty of ambient scenery. You can grind the rail on a houseboat on Lake Powell or off the main cannon of a battleship in the Boneyard. The water offers nice real-time reflections of the scenery but your boarder is strangely absent. All of the levels are quite creative and designed for functionality and trick lines while remaining imaginative and fun to explore.

While there is sufficient ambient noise such as the boat engine and the splashing of waves there was also a disturbing lack of any additional sounds to immerse me in the game levels. If I’m grinding across the deck of a houseboat I want to hear the owner screaming at me. It’s just a small observations and it really doesn’t detract from the quality of the gameplay in any way.

The lack of any custom boarder creator or level editor bothered me at first, but then I realized that there is so much content that comes with the game that I doubt most people would really want to play it much more beyond the scope of what is provided. Heck, by the time you finish this game the sequel will probably be out or some other game will have captured your attention.

Even so, I must admit that I haven’t had this much fun with a game in a long time, both because it represents a sport I enjoy in my personal life (although not nearly as extreme) and because it mirrors that sport so perfectly. Everything from the wake generation to the boat and boarder physics is flawless and you won’t find a more original or fun game than Wakeboarding Unleashed.