After Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater brought so much attention to the entire
subgenre of extreme sports games, it’s no surprise that other companies
have tried to cash in on its popularity. Some developers have attempted
to create skateboarding games similar to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and
others have tried to create games that play like Tony Hawk but involve
a different extreme sport. Mattel’s Championship Surfer falls into this
latter category, as it attempts to integrate the intuitive
trick-performing system of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater with the sport of
surfing. While this may seem like a viable idea, in the end,
Championship Surfer doesn’t pull it off well enough.Visually,
Championship Surfer is fairly good, though the water itself looks a
little unrealistic. There are no reflections and no transparency
effects, so the ocean looks like one giant blue texture. However, the
wave effects are convincing. You’ll see mist spraying out as the tube
of the wave crashes down, and you can actually see the water drawn into
the wave. Unfortunately, the developers at Krome Studios didn’t put as
much effort into the 3D surfers. The eight selectable characters are
represented by just one color-swapped character. Even the one female
surfer, Rochelle Ballard, looks the same as all the male surfers in the
game but with a short wetsuit and different hair color. However,
secondary objects floating in the water - including mines, crates,
swimmers, and photographers - are surprisingly detailed and immediately
identifiable so you don’t run into them while cutting up the wave. But
rain, lightning, and other weather effects are so subtle that you’ll
hardly even notice them during gameplay.Championship Surfer has
seven modes of play, but none offer any real incentive to keep you
playing the game past the first few beaches. The championship mode lets
you enter into a tournament where you compete in a designated heat
against another surfer. To progress to the next round, you must reach a
specified point total by performing different tricks. If you win the
tournament, you get the highest score total and you get to see a brief
trophy award ceremony. Playing through the championship mode can be fun
at first, if you haven’t unlocked the additional beaches in any other
mode - but if other beaches are already available to you, then
participating in the championship isn’t quite as entertaining.
Download Championship Surfer:
http://rapidshare.com/files/158508279/Championship_Surfer.rar
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