Written By Shaun McCracken
When you look at all the extreme sport releases so far, you kind of wonder
what they haven't done yet. We have skateboarding, snowboarding, motocross, BMX,
and even surfing. There have also bee many games done by different companies for
each genre, and each with their own end result. The surfing genre is probably the
one genre that has never had a critically sucessful game. I think the best surfing
game up to the point of KSPS was the surfing game in California Games for the Lynx.
And that's pretty old. Transworld Surf made a moderately sucessful surfing game,
except I heard it had problems with the design of it's camera. So, what better
time than for Activision to do a surfing game. They did skateboarding, BMX and
snowboarding, so this seems like a natural move. Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer may be
the best video repesentation of the sport to date, but when you look at the other
"extreme sport" games, this one seems a little behind. Perhaps it's due to the
nature of the design, since surfing is a little more restrictive than land sports.
KSPS is pretty much THPS in the water, minus the abillity to do rail tricks
and other things you can do on land. Plus, Activision claims "you never ride the
same wave twice", so your "terrain" changes from time to time. It was like comparing
Wave Race to a street racer, the dynamics on your racing surface are two different
worlds, and provide two different experiences. Same goes for here. It takes a little
more thought and quick thinking to execute your tricks in the ocean, and makes for
something new to get in to. The trick system is designed kind of like it is in
the Tony Hawk series, although it's fitted for surfing. You can still link tricks
and fill a meter for a special move, but you really can't connect everything with
manuals or rail slides. It's great that the developer knew this, and didn't try to
cram a trick system that doesn't work in a different environment like the developer's
of Shaun Palmer's Pro Boarder did.
In terms of stage design, it's thought out rather well. You have a main goal
that needs to be acomplished, and sub-goals to accomplish for extra items. Your
goals can range from acheiving a certain score, to photo ops, to knocking people
over. Some things, such as jumping over the pier, are a bit tough to do. Most of
the goals seem fair, and doable. While the whole game seems similar stage by stage,
since really you're always in water, each stage has different wave heights and
direction. Some stages you will not be able to do tube tricks, while others may
have large wave heights. Then you have the different objects and varying weather
conditions. Before you start a new stage, you have a video (horribly compressed)
which shows the real-life location, and Kelly Slater rambling and reminicing about
that location. Seemed kind of odd to me, and we could have done without it, quite
frankly.
Graphics in KSPS are not stellar, but they get the job done. The water texturing looks
great in most stages (although Wave Race Blue Storm still has the smoothest and
best moving water and waves). It's pretty much all you see, with the exception of some
objects in the stage. The player models are decent and have smooth animations, but
for some reason in many of the Activision sports games I've played, the models
look pretty beaten up. Maybe it's the colors in the texturing, I don't know.
There is some slow down, mostly when you go near the area where the water sprays
from the wave. Why the game can't handle this is a mystery, seeing how Burnout 2
manages to churn out some compliacted particles and still keep the framerate stable.
The splash effects when a player bails is not so pretty. It's a pixelated effect,
much like what we were treated to in the GCN version of SpyHunter. At least here,
it only occurs in that effect.
A note to Activision, and any other company that uses Bink Video. Stop using
it! It horribly compresses video and sound. I've seen some pretty sharp video in
GCN games, such as MK Deadly Alliance, NHL Hitz 2003, F-Zero GX and Bloodrayne.
The audio doesn't suffer in those said titles, either. But companies who use
Bink Video end up with tinny sound and awfully compressed graphics. I've seen this
in THPS 4, Smuggler's Run Warzones, tinny sound in Robotech Battlecry, and pretty
bad video and sound quality here. The company would be better off doing the video
themselves without the middleware.
The sound in KSPS, with the exception of the video, is clear and not too bad.
Good ocean sounds and effects, but the effects do not change that often. The music
is ok, but really laid back. It's kind of the opposite of what you would hear
in other extreme sport games. And once again, it's a soundtrack with music I've
never heard of.
KSPS is not a bad game, but not a perfect one. It's a different offering in
the extreme sports genre, and it's a welcome one at that. While I have yet to try
Transworld Surf Next Wave, I think it may be safe to say that this is the better
surfing game, just because of a tighter camera and a good trick system. But compared
to games such as THPS 4, SSX Tricky, and Aggressive Inline, Kelly Slater just doesn't
have the same compelling gameplay or design those said games have. Also, there's
the lack of a custom surfer and a park editor mode (of course, how would that work
here?), which kind of pushes back the appeal somewhat. But, it is easy to get into,
much easier than I thought. It's an intuituve and good handling game with a decent
design, and I think those who enjoy the genre may appreciate this game. Like I
said, it's a different offering, much like Aggressive Inline was.
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Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer
