Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer

For those of you familiar with the other O2 games, you will immediately recognize the style of the game as there is the ability to link tricks and maximize your special meter which will allow you to perform more complicated, cooler tricks.  Most gamers will probably want to take a quick run through the tutorial which explains everything as this game has a few nuances and is not just Tony Hawk on water. 

One problem that the gameplay suffers from is the simplicity of the moves.  Most moves can simply be executed by double tapping one of the buttons or by holding a button.  By quickly mashing on the buttons, it is very easy to max out your special meter.  At this point it is possible to perform a special move.  The only problem is that the special moves are also very easy to perform.  Overall, this leaves a fairly simple and unchallenging level of gameplay.  Also, many of the moves appear very similar and the excitement garnered by mixing many different looking tricks is not there.

The greatest challenge is in landing the aerial tricks as the greatest points are awarded for landing a perfect trick.  The direction of landing is what is critical here as landing a perfect trick requires the player to land at a perfect 180 degrees to their angle of takeoff.  The only problem is that the angle of takeoff is very difficult to determine, and after a few spins in the air, which also adds points to the trick, it is very difficult to determine what angle at which to land in order not to fall, let alone land a perfect trick.  This is primarily due to the water graphics.  As good as the water effects are there are no markers so that you can tell in which direction the momentum of your character is traveling.  This appears to be more of a design flaw than a viable challenge as it makes landing a decent trick very difficult not through the mechanics of the game but through a problem that will likely be experienced by most gamers.

One cool thing that can be done in the game is the ability to ride tubes.  This means that as a surfer, you can ride within the crest of the wave.  At this point a balance meter is displayed on screen and to maintain your position in the tube you must balance the joypad from left to right much like a grind in the Tony Hawk games.  Apart from this little part of the game, there isn’t a whole lot of variation in the types of things that you can do.

The layout of the game is very similar to the other O2 titles.  There is a two player mode, a career mode, and single player challenge and practice mode.  All the extra videos of locations and surfers that you have unlocked appear in an extras section that you can view at any time.  The career mode is the real meat of the game and this is where the extra surfboards, improvement on surfer’s skills and the more surf videos can be unlocked.  The upgrades to your surfer’s skills can not be chosen, but happen automatically when clearing a certain number of career objectives.  The different surf boards that you affect your surfer’s ability to perform in different ways.  Some will be more built for speed while others will afford you a better carving ability.

The graphics here are really top notch with the water effects looking especially crisp.  At the higher resolutions, the game is a true beauty to behold. As an added bonus as well, the system requirements really aren’t that steep and even top systems from a few months ago should be fine at the higher resolutions.  One piece of hardware to ensure that you have sprouting from your USB port is a gamepad as this will improve your level of enjoyment as it will afford you so much more control. 

While in no way a serious contender of taking the crown of extreme sports games away from the Tony Hawk series, Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer offers an interesting look into the world of surfing.  The gameplay is fairly solid, if a little elementary and repetitive, but does offer enough of a challenge in its specific career goals as to offer most gamers at least a little diversion from some of the more deserving holiday titles.

- Mark Leung

(December 21, 2003)