If anything can help beat the finger-numbing cold of NYC today, it’s a Wii video game that sends players down frigid, snow-covered mountains in pursuit of extreme ginger-nut Shaun White. Huh? Probably not. But Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip is worth at least a few hours of your time. Or at least until your face stops tingling and the icicles melt off your ears.
The Wii iteration of this game, also available on the next-gen consoles, is an entirely different beast than its counterparts. Recognizing the graphic limitations of Nintendo’s little engine that could, the Shaun White developers decided to forgo brilliant visuals in favor of a much more cartoonish look and playful gameplay. The idea is simple: You’re sorta kinda connected vaguely with superstar Shaun White. Except not really. Because he keeps jetting off to slopes and leaving you behind, though he always makes a point of dropping you a line about where he’s headed. Your job is to catch up with White, racking up points, collecting new friends and owning challenges along the way.
Getting into the game is simple, and you’ll be blowing down dusty white slopes in no time. The addiction level is high because not much is at stake; it’s just simple, silly fun. Controls are a breeze, but somewhat awkward. Gravity does most of the work on these mountains, but to turn, you’ll need to twist the Wii Remote left or right. Twisting motions always seem to be the least natural on Wii (see turning switches in Metroid Prime), but after a few runs you’ll get the hang of the maneuvers. Balancing on grinds is super-easy with even just a sliver of concentration, and pulling off trick requires a flick of the wrist to jump and subsequent button-mashing/continued flicking/twisting. For the most part, I’ve been completely lost as to what combinations lead to which tricks–though just about anything will result in something cool–but by the third or fourth run down a mountain, the tricks started to get repetitive. After all, there are only a few comfortable motions you can make with a wrist-flick. (This game also works with the Wii Balance Board, though I wasn’t able to try out this aspect of the controls.)
Although race- or time-trial-based challenges are quite energizing, particularly when you figure out the game’s speedster secrets, the accuracy-based challenges (find three coin-ish things) are a bit aggravating. Miss one turn, and start over because you’re screwed. In the end, though, a few more hours with Road Trip are much better than actually stepping outside to brave the stupid, stupid, stupid cold. So boil up some Ramen noodles; here’s to becoming a hermit until the sun decides to get off its lazy ass and do its damn job of heating our planet.
