Overall Rating

Kelly Slater Pro Surfer - ss1Long before someone nailed roller-skate wheels to a two-by-four and created the first skateboard, people were using surfboards to get aggro in the ocean. But since then, the popularity of surfing has yet to jettison upward in the same way extreme sports as skateboarding -- and even motocross riding -- have. This week "Extended Play" casts a critical eye on "Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer" for the PlayStation 2, Activision's waterlogged version of its "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater" franchise.

Not made for gaming?

If you've ever tried to simply stand up and catch a wave on a surfboard, you can probably appreciate the elegant simplicity of the original extreme sport. How many other sports can you think of that reward participants simply for turning smoothly? Herein lies the primary issue with this, or any surfing game. It's not the perfect material for a videogame. But with that in mind, "Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer" does about as much with the sport as you could expect.

The problem with creating a game based upon surfing is that no matter how hard a developer might try, it can't change the inherent characteristics of the sport. Unlike in skateboarding or inline skating where the only inhibitor to level design is the imagination, in surfing games all you have is a wave. The waves in "Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer" are varied in that that you'll find larger waves at certain locations, and the tube can be smaller or nonexistent. Once you've learned to adjust to the slight differences, playing the game is like hitting the same half-pipe over and over again.

To keep things from becoming too monotonous, there are three different trick varieties to choose from. Though somewhat unrealistic, you can get enough air off the lips of waves to clear an entire pier. There's a full complement of tricks commonly found in other action sports games such as 360-degree spins, flip tricks, and grabs. Each of the 10 real surfers in the game also have their own over-the-top special tricks available that are sure to make a few eyes bulge. You can also perform tricks on the lip like floaters or slide around on the face of the wave using tailslides and other direction-altering maneuvers. You'll also spend ample time inside the tube where you must manage a balance meter while inputting controller commands at the same time. Needless to say, it's about as easy as riding a wave on a Popsicle stick.

Kelly Slater Pro Surfer - story2Combo nation

If you've played any of the other extreme sports games, or even played many fighting games, you're likely familiar with performing several tricks in a row to create a combo string. Combos are integral to scoring big points, but you can only link different varieties of tricks when your surfer's special meter is maxed-out. It's a challenge at first until you realize you can hop up to the lip of the wave at any time and fill the special meter up with just a few easy moves. Another slight quirk with the combo system is that you have far too much time to string tricks together. This, in conjunction with the broken special meter, makes the game much too easy.

The career mode is set up like a boat trip around the world, where you hit all the greatest surf spots along the way. Each spot, or break, has around 10 objectives to complete such as scoring a specific amount of points, performing a provided list of tricks, or striking objects found floating in the water. As you might expect, you're rewarded with new boards and attribute points. But the biggest payoff is the FMV footage that has Slater narrating while footage of surfers riding each break is shown. For the uninitiated, this is a great history lesson on the best surfing locations in the world.

A great percentage of the enjoyment derived from surfing is simply feeling the sensation of cutting through the water. This exhilarating experience is nailed in "Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer." The impressive sense of speed makes you really feel the shift in momentum when your rider starts heading down the face of a wave. Real surfers will appreciate the physics behind how the boards slow down while carving, making "Kelly Slater" the perfect game to play with the locals. It also receives bonus points for its healthy selection of multiplayer modes for up to two players.

Repetitive beauty

The visual offerings are stunning at times but more often than not, monotonous. The way the sunlight rolls over the water during twilight sessions is very nice, but there's little more than a few stray piers or boulders to help you tell one location from another. Luckily, waves are shaped differently as you progress from one break to another. Some will be oval-shaped and make it hard to ride the tube, while others have large caverns of water to cruise through. The camera can cause some problems at times, because some of the level objectives require that you run down windsurfers and it simply refuses to get behind your surfer unless you're riding in the tube.

With a nice ambient soundtrack and less-demanding gameplay than other entries in its genre, playing "Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer" is an experience very much like the laid-back sport it attempts to emulate. It's more successful than any other surfing game that's come before it, but its seemingly random waves and amazing physics don't entirely overcome its repetitive nature or lack of difficulty. It delivers a nearly peerless interpretation of the sport of surfing, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a videogame that's worth full price.