What We Liked

Move Your Body.  This is the sequel to the wildly successful Shaun White Snowboarding from last year, except that this time around it is available only on the Wii.  And that’s a good thing! It makes great use of both the Wii Balance Board and Wii’s Motion Plus accessory (you can also play with a standard Wii remote).  We love this because it really takes advantage of the Wii platform’s interactive controls.  That means it gets you and your kids up off the couch and moving your body.  And believe me, you do have to move your body.  There are so many cool tricks in this game that require you to really shift your balance, move your body, and wave your arms around.  To do tricks you have to not only shift your balance on the Wii board, but you have to coordinate that with arms flicks and pressing several different button combinations on the Wii remote.  While this sounds tricky, it’s really not.  Our 3-year old jumped right on the Balance Board and started doing awesome aerial tricks his first time down the slopes.

Varied Game Play. We really liked that there are so many different ways to play.  First, there is the Campaign Mode in which you travel around the world boarding in different types of events (either trick events, race events, or a combination of both).  Your goal in this mode is to keep improving your World Ranking until you reach the World Stage Championship and become the best in the world.  You can also play in Free ride mode to just enjoy your time on the slopes and practice your skills like catching big air, riding the half-pipe, speeding downhill, and more.  You could play in multi-player “versus” mode in either split screen or hot seat mode.  In split screen, you and up to four friends race a the same time on a split screen.  Or you can use hot seat mode where you compete one at a time.  Either way, playing in multi-player “versus” mode makes this super fun for the whole family. The multi-player mode is what’s going to make this game have lasting power in our house because we can keep playing and racing against each other (which always makes for a great game!).

Great Graphics. The graphics in this game are awesome, especially for a Wii game.  The game is definitely geared toward kids and the chunky, cartoonish characters are fun and interesting.  The sets for the snowboarding slopes have great detail and are really exciting as well.  Our kids love the Eiffel Tower set in Paris and the fireworks that shoot off over Mount Fuji in Japan.  All of the movement is smooth and really well done.  You won’t be visually disappointed at all.

Ease of Play for Younger Kids. As we mentioned before, the game controls are really intuitive and our younger kids (3 and 6) really took to the slopes with no problem.  The game makes it easy to jump up onto slider rails so you don’t have to be super-coordinated to make things work.  In fact, even if you get in the general area of a rail and board towards it, your character automatically hops up on it and starts sliding downhill.  This makes it very easy for the little ones to enjoy the game and do some of the cool tricks too!

Rockin’ the Slopes. OK, the soundtrack is great.  Especially for moms and dads who grew up in the 80’s!  Both my wife and I loved hearing classics from the Ramones, Blondie, Kiss and lots more.  I can’t speak for everyone’s musical taste, but we really found the music fun and appropriate for this type of play.

The Trick Machine. One of the coolest ideas in the game requires the Wii Motion Plus.  If you have a Wii Motion Plus, you can use the Trick Machine to create and customize your own boarding tricks.  It really lets you and your kids stretch your imagination and try some awesome boarding tricks.

Flat Out Fun. We absolutely love this game.  There are lots of games for the Wii that are interesting, but this game gets everyone in our family up and cheering.  It’s an enjoyable journey all the way through.  There’s not other way to say it, this game is just flat out fun!

What We Didn’t Like

More Music. Although we loved the soundtrack, we wish there was more of it.  Sometimes it seemed like the songs were getting a repetitive because we heard them so many times.

Better Balance Board Support. Unfortunately, only one rider at a time can use the Wii Balance Board to slide the slopes.  This means other players have to resort to the Wii remote in multi-player head to head mode.  This isn’t so much a limitation of the game as it is of the Wii in general.  The Wii can only read one Balance Board at a time.  We found that playing in hot seat mode helped as we could each take a turn on the Balance Board and still be racing “against each other”.

Good for the Kiddos?

Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage is rated E for Everyone with Mild Lyrics and Comic Mischief. The ESRB rating is based on the fact that in one cutscene, a character is seen holding his knees together and shaking; his friends joke that he badly needs to go to the bathroom (e.g., “I don’t think Zak can hold it in for much longer.”).  Our kids found this scene amusing, but if you’re not into bathroom humor, you might skip this cutscene.  Also, one background song contains the expletive “hell,” and another references alcohol (e.g., “When you’re ready we can share the wine”).  Otherwise, the dialog doesn’t contain any foul language or suggestive themes and is really kid appropriate.

There’s not a whole lot of educational value, but did you really expect any from a snowboarding game?  We did use the fact that players travel around the world to talk a bit about geography.  Each venue does display iconic graphics to really give a sense of place and this seems to have had a lasting impact on our kids.  They recently saw a photo of Mount Fuji in a magazine and immediately said “Hey that’s in Japan”.  We had never discussed Mt. Fuji outside of game time with Shaun White, so in a way, you could gain something educational from your boarding experiences.

What we really loved was that this game got our kiddos moving around.  Any game that gets them off the couch and moving is good in our eyes.  Not everything has to be educational, and physical activity is always important.

Golden Egg Rating

We give Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage 5 out of 5 Golden Eggs. We loved this game and really couldn’t find anything wrong with it.  The game play is fun and entertaining and easy enough for everyone in the family to enjoy.  The graphics are really good for a Wii game and the soundtrack is exciting and fun too.  This is a great game for the whole family to enjoy.

Slideshow and Screenshots