Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip Review

There isn't a lot of mystique to video game snowboarding, given how easy it is to translate the mechanics of the sport onto a controller. This is even more evident with the Wii remote in your hand. Shaun White does just enough to capture the attention of a gamer looking to carve and pull off tricks with a minimal amount of fuss. Beyond that, however, the game misses an opportunity to expand our experience with the sport.

Simple trick point challenges, timed races, and collect-a-thons are scattered among mountains across the globe, and these events quickly become repetitive. Being able to free-roam these locales would improve that situation, but only marginally. Shaun White doesn't have its sights set that high. Instead, you must be content getting around with smooth carving by twisting and moving the remote from side to side or through the game's simple set of tricks.

Shaun White on the Wii has fewer gameplay hiccups than the versions on the other consoles, but this is because it's so eager to help you out. You'll magnetically pop and stick onto rails and morph into tricks you didn't know you were performing. This is in contrast to the times when turning – on the ground or in the air – becomes uncharacteristically difficult. During these moments of discord the game vacillates between being too user-friendly and then not friendly enough.

Perhaps sensing the fact that it has limited its scope in pursuit of relatively easy gameplay execution, Ubisoft added both co-op and competitive split-screen multiplayer play. These options, along with a simplistic ability boost system, however, don't broaden Shaun White's horizons enough. In a sport searching for the next big crazy trick, this game's insistence on the basics only takes players so far.