Shaun White's Snowboarding (Series) Review

Shaun White's Snowboarding is a series of snowboard racing games that focus on recreating, move for move, the downhill and halfpipe snowbound experience. You race down a mountain landscape steering with intuitive controls and performing point-earning tricks.

Drawing on the success of Family Ski/We Ski that used motion controls and the Wii balance board, Shaun White's Snowboarding takes the fun in a more sporting and mature direction. The two Wii versions of the game, Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip and Shaun White Snowboarding World Stage, offer strong motion-controls and multiplayer modes that are great for families. You can play with up to four people each using either a Wii Remote on its own or adding the BalanceBoard from Wii-fit for one of the players. You can also use the Motion Plus add-on to make the controls more accurate.

The main game is a series of challenges ranging from speed runs, token collecting or tricks. Each slope has a number of different levels like this and is revisited at different points in the game. There are also half-pipe levels that introduce more trick focused events. But new in Shaun White's Snowboarding World Stage is the inclusion of these halfpipe elements within a down-hill slope.

Whereas Road Trip only had one other boarder to race, World Stage offers up to six computer-controlled opponents, in addition to the four human players, to create a much greater sense of competitive racing.

• Shaun White Snowboarding (2008) on Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3
• Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip (2008) on Wii with Wii Fit board support.
• Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage (2009) on Wii with Wii Fit board and Motion Plus support.
• Shaun White Skateboarding (2010) on PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360.