Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer - GameCube

Another extreme sport, another world champion endorsement, another world champion-endorsed extreme sports sim from Activision. This time it's surfing and the packaging reads Kelly Slater, the six-time world champion of the sport. Released across the majority of gaming platforms, Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer enables players to experience all the thrills of the world's first extreme sport without even getting their feet wet.

Selecting the man himself, or another one of the eight featured surfing stars, players travel to 13 of the world's hottest coastlines, in search of the perfect wave. As with other games in the Tony Hawk style, the aim is to pull off tricks and combos, score big, and thus progress through the various tournaments and challenges. The completion of competitions unlocks subsequent locations and also the usual array of 'cool stuff', such as boards and clips of surfing videos.

Authentic looking environments feature throughout. Players navigate waves populated with other surfers and deal with changing weather conditions and tides. A great emphasis is placed on aerials, big wave surfing, barrels and tubes, as players traverse waves on full beach environments.

The main game mode in Kelly Slater is Career mode. This presents a non-linear, story-based game in which players choose their own path throughout, interacting with famous surfers, sponsors, magazines and photographers, as they progress from competition to competition. Free Surf mode is rather self-explanatory, whilst Head-to-Head offers the chance to challenge friends in multiplayer games.

There isn't a great deal of competition in the surfing game market, probably because the simplicity of the sport doesn't lend much to the game genre in terms of depth. If surfing is your bag however, then you can't go wrong with Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer.
more