After Shaun White’s debut with the snowy slope on his snowboard, it was time to take the skateboarding series over with Ubisoft’s release of Shaun’s White skateboarding. This is quite a rough change of Shaun White, from the soft snowy texture to the rock solid tarmac. Let’s see how it did.

So, the story of the game is about The Ministry which basically controls the entire city into a boring living environment where everything is standard and everything is gray. No emotions are permitted in the city and they will be removed from your system. The ministry have captured Shaun White to study him and research on how he managed to get the city into this skateboarding and colourful joy ride. Your job is to restore life to the world. Looking at the story, the movie Equilibrium which basically had the same idea where people are injected with a medicine to remove any emotions from their life. Thou the movie was great, putting a similar story to a skateboarding game wasn’t such a good idea, but being a skateboarding game which by time can get a bit stale and boring, this touch makes the game more interesting and with the Flow, it makes it a colourful experience.

You start off by selecting your player’s appearance. There are a lot of customization options, from head gear, tops, pants, skateboard and even the wheels of the skateboard. There is quite an interesting variation which you can change the appearance of the play. Once you are ready from customizing your player, you are off to the explore the city

The first you get in touch is with the Flow. The Flow is the ability to get the society to follow you, and the Flow is what will get you to influence the world around you and the people in it. The way to control the people is by influence. So, to influence people you must harness the Flow with your skateboard to get the people and society to follow your ways. Whenever you jump or make a trick, the area around you changes into a colourful world showing off your influence around you. So you may do tricks in the area to get levels of influence. These levels will get you out of some places and of course influence Ministry people to follow your ways and boycott the Ministry. The Flow is a counter which you will see on your screen. Once you make a trick and land correctly, the Flow will increase while if you die or badly fall from a trick, this will increase and your influence will be low in the area. Another thing is the ability to shape object. Basically you find green lighted object that when you ride them, they will form and shape to let you reach higher places and solidify, forming a ramp or a rollercoaster-like ride. Although the objects are shaped and you pass through, these can be reusable. Thou you can reuse a shaped object, it will not change its shape once you gone the first time on it.

One thing which was interesting and to get you going easily was the tutorial, having like a mentor showing you the ropes to get the groove back into the people and of course your primary mission, get Shaun White out from the Ministry’s clutches. After playing a bit the game you will get a feeling that it’s not only just the usual skateboarding game, but it offers a very good experience with a lot of colours and very good for non hardcore skateboarding players.

Thou the object shaping are fun and a good idea, the fact that they are mostly predefined and you just need to grind or ride on to activate them, makes them a bit boring after some time. The Flow is a good touch since when you do a trick here and there you will colour up the world, the people, unlock new stuff and open back shops and iconic places, like the skateboarding shop of Bob which then again will unlock new skills and tricks for you, depending on your XP you will learn these new tricks and pay for them with your XP. Once the tricks are unlocked your XP will decrease depending on its cost from your XP.

The flow of the game is solid, the mechanics are straight and a bit simple which makes the game targeted to people who are not hardcore skaters. Thou the hardcore players will not give them that awesome experience, it’s a great step from Ubisoft to approach players who like to try on the skateboarding game with a colourful touch. The single player mode pushes you through a lot of quests and mission like to help the community and get a shop re-opened after being closed down by the Ministry, but in time it gets a little bit boring.

The game also offers multiplayer modes featuring Go With the Flow which is basically who scores the most Flow points in the specified time limit and also the mode in team-mode, Ministry Vs The Rising, my favourite which is basically you Vs the Ministry trying to colour building while the Ministry de-colours them and lastly the Shaping Battle mode which make basically you will need to gather as much as possible Flow points and shape the area around you in the specified time.

As regards to graphics, the surroundings needed more polishing as they are a bit simple and not much detail. Thou the wave of colours and how the surrounding environment changes as you influence the area is interesting and nice. The sound and sound track on the other hands makes up for the graphics giving a solid structure, featuring a good selection of music and the sound effects are good. The voice over is funny and its comedy style is much appreciated.

Conclusion

Shaun White Skateboarding is a good game for people to start playing some skateboarding as the gameplay mechanics aren’t too hard to get used to. Although the storyline doesn’t make much sense with skateboarding, it makes a good colourful touch with a lot happening around. The graphics of the area needed to be polished up and the missions get a bit stale as you move on. The multiplayer is a good idea and the Ministry Vs The Rising was the best option, thou the statistic after each play miss the details.