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Reviews
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Views
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Date of last review
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9
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41532
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Mon October 13, 2003
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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Average Rating
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89% of reviewers
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$46.98
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4.7
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Description:
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Manufacturer's Description
Wakeboarding Unleashed Featuring Shaun Murray takes action sports games to the next level with breathtaking water graphics and unique gameplay including interaction with the rope.
Get ripped across a lake by a high-powered speedboat and trick through dangerous terrain. Feel the rush as you crash into houseboats and catch huge air in 9 exotic levels with 7 world-class wakeboarders.
Features:
Extreme wakeboarding game
Compete in a variety of competitions or let go of the rope to explore secret areas
Control the boat
Large real-world levels such as Lake Powell
Interactive objects such as birds, boats, and spectators
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wakejunkie137
Registered: January 2003
Posts: 377
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Review Date: Fri June 6, 2003
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $34.00
| Rating: 5
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Pros:
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awesome graphics and good game play
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Cons:
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too unrealistic - too much air, etc.
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WOW, that's all I have to say...WOW. I had played the demo on THPS4 a lot and thought the final game was similar to an extent. The graphics look better, the tricks were better, and you got more air in the final game. The only negative about it is that its kind of unrealistic. Now dont get me wrong, pulling of 4 backflips or a huge spin is fun, but I just miss the realistic aspect of it. If I had a voice in the making of the game, I would make the unrealistic, huge air, and what not, some kind of cheat. But besides that the game kicks ass. There are way more positives than that one negative. You can drive the boat in "free drive" which is pretty cool. There are cool 2-player modes, and what I thought was good was when you play the career mode. Instead of just giving you a certain amount of time to play it in, there's a "groove meter". So if you keep doing good tricks and combos, you could play forever. So out of 10 points (10 is best), I would give this game a 9.75. go out and buy this game. Don't waste your time renting and stuff. Go buy it.
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Butta Seeka
Registered: January 2003
Posts: 1970
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Review Date: Sat June 7, 2003
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $54.86
| Rating: 5
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Pros:
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everything
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Cons:
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too much stuff in levels
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Wow, that's all I can say. For those of you that are basing it on the demo, don't because it's completely different. If you own a PS2, Xbox, or Gamecube then get it. You won't be disappointed.
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NWWake
Registered: May 2003
Posts: 36
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Review Date: Tue June 10, 2003
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Would you recommend the product? No |
Price you paid?: $49.00
| Rating: 3
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Pros:
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finally a real wakeboarding game
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Cons:
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not a real wakeboarding game
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As a wakeboarder I was actually pretty dissapointed. A non-wakeboarder or X-gamer who is growing bored of Tony Hawk would probably get as much or more out of it. The graphics where ok. Some of the graphics and physics they do in there is really hard to get correct. There are things that need more work like the water is not great, and I was really disappointed in the game play. It isn't quite a push any stupid combination of buttons and out comes a trick type of game, but it comes pretty close. The challenge is not in trying to learn a hard trick but learning what you can exploit in the environement to do some rediculous thing. In that sense it is much more like an 'adventure' game than a 'boarding' game. This aspect probably make it more appealing to non-wakeboarders so I understand the tradeoffs in what they have done to gain a bigger market. Would have been cool to have a more wide open environement where you have to actually 'learn' tricks. Like rotating the correct amount and applying correct 3 axis of rotation while in the air. Some aspects where just bad like some collision and rendering bugs, and is that driver actually at scale to the boat? Some aspects of the game obviously had a lot of effort put in to it and it makes for a commendable game. Congrats to the team that put it out.
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Mister C
Registered: January 2003
Posts: 3296
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Review Date: Wed June 11, 2003
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $55.00
| Rating: 5
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Pros:
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Killer Graphics, its all around great
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Cons:
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Sometimes the levels seem a little cluttered
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An excellent game, great from the very first run. The groove meter is cool, so the level lasts as long as your doing good. Only minor drawback is that sometimes im aching for just a lake of open water with no obstacles, but its something i can cope with.
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Shawn Madison
Old School Freak
Registered: January 2003
Posts: 2853
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Review Date: Wed June 18, 2003
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $50.00
| Rating: 5
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Pros:
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Killer Graphics and Fluid Movements-Xbox:Customized Soundtracks
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Cons:
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Levels are too Cluttered!
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Great Wakeboarding game and extremely fun to play. It was well worth the wait for release and I recommend it to everyone. I love adding songs and making your own soundtracks in the xbox version and it is fun to compete against your friends. However, the levels seem to be a little cluttered with objects and you can never get a good free ride going without crashing into something. Would have been nice to have one open lake to practice your riding skills on the game without hitting objects!
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Pat McCarthy
Registered: January 2003
Posts: 3223
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Review Date: Wed July 9, 2003
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $50.00
| Rating: 4
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Pros:
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First real wakeboarding game, very fun, lots of things to accomplish.
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Cons:
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Soundtrack, a few missing things, tight levels.
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One of the most anticipated things for wakeboarders ever was the release of the first good wakeboarding video game, Wakeboarding Unleashed with Shaun Murray. The question is does the game live up to the hype?
INTRODUCTION
Activision, the publisher of such games as the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, began working with pro wakeboarder Shaun Murray a couple of years ago on developing a wakeboarding video game for the newest generation of console game systems.
Previously, a couple of poor wakeboarding games had been released. The first was a game called Burstrick Wakeboarding on the Playstation, and the second was a PC game called Darin Shapiro's Big Air Wakeboarding. Neither game was really that fun, or even very playable. So, when word leaked out that Activision was working with Murray on a serious wakeboarding game, people began to get very excited.
Due to the difficulties of making such a game, the game missed it's release date a couple of times which made wakeboarders everywhere continue to anticipate it's release. A demo of the game was eventually released with Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4, so people finally got a chance to taste the game. Then, this past June, Wakeboarding Unleashed with Shaun Murray was released to the public.
GAMEPLAY
My initial reaction when playing Wakeboarding Unleashed was mixed. One one hand, I was extremely excited to be playing a real wakeboarding video game, but on the other hand I found myself disappointed in various aspects of the game. However, over time I found myself enjoying the game more and more the better I got at playing it.
The gameplay can most easily be described as being like the Tony Hawk games, with some adjustments to account for the wakeboarding. It's very similar to Tony Hawk in how you control the rider, start your tricks, and perform tricks. However, it's different because you're being pulled behind a boat, and there's an added element of letting go of the rope and performing tricks without it.
Being similar to the Tony Hawk series made it fairly easy to start playing and performing tricks right away. This was a benefit, but it also kind of felt like I was just playing a modified version of that game.
The newer aspect of letting go of the rope seemed stupid and unrealistic to me at first, but I began to enjoy it as a way to mix things up. You can see things on the levels I couldn't get to otherwise, and it added an element of trickiness to let go of the rope and grab it again to keep going.
At first it's also a bit frustrating to have all kinds of obstacles in the way when you just want to do wake to wake tricks. It's annoying to try and do a trick and have the boat turn, or you land on top of a houseboat or rail. Again though, I soon learned what parts of levels were wide open to do tricks, and after learning all the wake tricks having all the obstacles to get creative on was a big benefit.
Most of the tricks and grabs look fairly realistic, although there are some basic tricks that are named incorrectly or really aren't done, and a few of the grabs when combined with spins make everything end up looking like a Hoochie Glide. It just takes a bit of skill to learn how to control and manipulate grabs to do what you want.
After getting experienced, I really enjoyed being able to just perform tricks I like to do on the water, such as grabbing a scarecrow, or simple spins with grabs. There's some kind of strange joy about controlling a video game character and making it do a backside 360 with a grab like you do on the water.
There are quite a few tricks that we'd like to see that were missing, and off-axis spins aren't naturally a trick you can do, although you can sort of manipulate it to happen. There are also plenty of tricks you can sort of make up on your own since you can get more air in the game than in reality.
The game also has a two player mode where one person controls the boat while the other controls the rider. This can be a fun way to mix things up with your friends. There's also a Tug of War mode where you compete against a friend performing tricks. Your rope gets shorter if you don't perform the trick, and eventually one rider wins.
After an initial adjustment and getting experienced, the gameplay is actually quite fun, and is really far better than previous wakeboarding games, although it does lag behind Tony Hawk 4 for example.
GRAPHICS
The graphics in Wakeboarding Unleashed are good. Water is one of the most difficult things to do in video games, and the water is done quite well. The pro riders look very similar to themselves, and levels have all kinds of interesting graphics and things to see. The water is really the most impressive aspect though.
SOUNDTRACK
The soundtrack might be the weakest part of the game. Music depends on personal taste of course, but the soundtrack seems to mostly be filled with 80s and 90s hard rock sounding music.
I'm not sure who picked the music or what constraints they had, but it's really not good in our opinion. I don't think it's really that representative of wakeboarding or music wakeboarders like. If you have an Xbox you can change the playlist to your own music, so that's always an option.
LEVELS, RIDERS, AND CHALLENGES
The pro riders in Wakeboarding Unleashed are Shaun Murray, Parks Bonifay, Darin Shapiro, Collin Wright, Dallas Friday, and Tara Hamilton. There are also a few secret characters that can be unlocked/found.
It's nice to have some different types of riders, and to have some of the top women riders, but we would've liked to see more riders. The option to create your own rider seems like it's something that should have been included but isn't.
There are 11 levels in Wakeboarding Unleashed. These levels consist of Lake Powell, The Bayou, Springfield, Florida, Ocean World, Hong Kong, The Boneyard, Venice, Timber Lake, Belize, and the Delta. The levels are done well. They have different graphics and lots of different types of obstacles, challenges, and gaps to perform.
Wakeboarding Unleashed levels consist of three different types of goals to accomplish. The first are level objectives which consist of getting a certain high score, performing certain tasks like boardsliding a certain distance, hitting a certain number of tubers, or other tasks.
The second set of goals are specific challenges in a seperate challenge mode. These challenges are things like performing one difficult gap transfer, following the tricks they ask you to do, or taking part in a boat driving race. What's nice about the challenges is that they start out easy and get harder. The process of performing the challenges forces you to learn new skills and abilities.
The last set of goals is performing certain gaps on the levels. Like transferring from one obstacle to another, hitting three rails in a row at one location, and other gaps. When you complete one gap, you get a key to view another gap so you can see where it is on the level. This can make the game very challenging if you try to hit every possible gap.
By accomplishing goals you earn more stats to improve your rider, and you unlock other levels.
The combination of levels, objectives, challenges, and gaps means there is a lot of stuff that can be done in the game. You shouldn't get bored very quickly if you actually try to accomplish everything.
BOTTOM LINE
Overall Wakeboarding Unleashed is very fun. It's easy to be critical of it since we've all been waiting so long for it and there are some obvious things that could have been included. However, to include more stuff means a longer wait for the game, so it's a compromise that had to be made.
After getting over the initial negatives, the game becomes very fun and addictive as you try to accomplish all the challenges and goals. There's a lot to the game, and it's a good overall effort that Shaun Murray should be proud to be associated with. We recommend this game to anyone who likes video games, and by buying it you also increase the chances of more wakeboarding games being made in the future.
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Heeter 84
Registered: July 2003
Posts: 145
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Review Date: Tue July 22, 2003
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $40.00
| Rating: 5
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Pros:
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Best Game Ever
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Cons:
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Almost none
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This game is absolutly filthy. Not only is it the best wakeboarding game, it is the best video game out. The only thing I can find wrong with it is the soundtrack. But that doesnt really matter for xobx because you can make your own if you really want to. It is addicting and fun. It starts out easy so you get hooked then it gets challenging. Absolutly the best game out weather you wakeboard or not. Go buy it, now.
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Gaignstar
Registered: September 2003
Posts: 468
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Review Date: Thu October 9, 2003
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $40.00
| Rating: 5
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Pros:
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that's the sh!t
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Cons:
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lost 5 girlfriend because of this game.
just kidding. I think every wakeboarder needs it.
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Inggy
Registered: January 2003
Posts: 878
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Review Date: Mon October 13, 2003
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: $49.99
| Rating: 5
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Pros:
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water graphics, people graphics
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Cons:
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No create-a-rider......... the soundtrack
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Pretty sick. I love the unrealistic factor. It makes everything that much more fun. If it were realistic, how fun could that get.
I love oging out of the ordinary. You can arrange tricks anyway you like. If it were realistic, you couldnt put more than 3 tricks together. This game alows countless possibilities.
Althought the soundtrack does suck, I like some of them. Some are good to wakeboard to. They dont have many pros, plus, their pro selection kind of sucked a little bit. They shoulda put in Froggy.
Finally, overall. Well worth the 50 bucks. It has provided much entertainment and I love the graphics and game play. I highly recommend.
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