Game Reviews

Shaun White made his video game debut nearly two years ago on the slopes with Shaun White Snowboarding, a game that wasn't exactly the second coming of SSX, but it wasn't a colossal disappointment either. Sadly the red-haired wonder's second outing, Shaun White Skateboarding, is a poorly focused game with plenty of errors in its design. Diehard Shaun White fans will be able to find a few moments of fun to cling to, but with the Flying Tomato staying on the sideline for most of the game's missions, those instances are few and very far between.

Shaun White Skateboarding presents a world totally devoid of color and emotion thanks to the evil totalitarian government regime known as The Ministry. Never mind how they came to be in power or who in their right minds would ever elect such a soul-sucking government party. It's best to just accept the game's premise and not put too much thought into what's actually going on. Just know that Shaun White has been imprisoned by this evil government, which means that you'll be playing nearly the entire game as your created skater. Because, you know, that's what everyone wants from a game called Shaun White Skateboarding, right? So while your main goal is freeing Shaun White from his captors, you spend most of your time bringing emotion and expression back into the game world with your skating. This is done by simply landing tricks, at which point an explosion of color erupts from beneath your feet and spreads to everything around you. It's a decently cool effect the first time you see it, but after the 6,000th instance, it gets a little stale. Not to mention the fact that bringing a lifeless world to life with skateboarding doesn't make much sense. The story is pushed along by a bunch of ancillary characters (more like caricatures) that provide a few laughs as you make your way through the campaign mode. Shaun White Skateboarding has one creative element to it that sets it apart from the rest of the skating crowd and that's shaping. Shaping allows you to extend certain rails and ramps any way you please, or so it seems. In reality just about every rail and ramp has a pre-defined endpoint that you'll need to hit to make your way to the next objective. If you don't hit that point your ramp or rail will likely lead to open air and you'll need to restart the shaping process. As it turns out, the creativity of shaping is sort of non-existent in single-player.