Developer: Climax Studios
Publisher: Vision Games Publishing LTD
Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Tested on: PS4
Surf World Series – Review
It’s been ages since the days of the great Tony Hawk games, and we can’t help but say that we miss pulling one trick after another, stringing together massive combos that earned us heaps of points. In the same spirit, Surf World Series tries to bring back those days with an arcade surfing game that’s all about beating scores, stringing combos together and enjoying the waves on iconic places in the world that are known to be surfing paradises. We could almost feel the wind through our hair and the water splash behind our backs.
Story
There is no story to be found in Surf World Series, the game just throws you in the water (quite literally) with a few tutorial levels, allowing you to learn the ropes. After that it’s just one event after another, with slight variations objective-wise. Then again, sports games, be it arcade or realistic are not known for their deep and interesting storylines, thus you won’t miss out on much in this department.
Graphics
Graphically Surf World Series is quite pleasant to look at. The waves look realistic and the backdrops may be simple and quite empty, they still look like the real deal. Your characters might not be as realistic as in other sports games such as FIFA, but they do the trick. Overall the game looks quite spiffy, even with the limited locations available. You can always spice things up by changing your characters’ outfits and taking a look at stages during the day or night, but other than that you’ll have to make do with what the game throws at you. While the game may not impress crowds with its graphical prowess, it has a certain fun vibe to it that makes it appealing.
Sound
The game has a very upbeat and rock-ish soundtrack that brings you right in the proper groove to play this surfing game. It’s fun to keep some of the levels going, even when not playing to enjoy the superbly chosen music. Other than that you can enjoy the sound of the waves and you falling down from time to time.
Gameplay
Surf World Series is an arcade game and not a simulation title as some may think when looking at the somewhat lifelike visuals. Your goal is to score big or go home, and you can get the most points by stringing combos together and performing different tricks, without doing the same trick twice in a row. The mechanics are straightforward, the controls are fairly easy to learn and the game allows many different button combinations to present you with an arsenal of different tricks. The physics are of course nowhere near realistic, but that’s part of the arcade charm of this title.
The game is in some sense realistic as waves don’t last forever. During the events you’ll have to catch multiple waves, with each wave counting as a ‘round’. At the top left hand side of the screen you’ll see how long the wave will last, and thus how much time you have to keep pulling off tricks and to beat a score, or clear the other conditions necessary to progress in the game. While every stage has extra objectives, these don’t feel really important, as you can progress when you clear the main objective, which is for some reason not shown in the main menu when choosing the next stage, ranging between the different difficulty levels. If you’re not in the mood to clear stages, you can also play some free surfing or go online.
Content is the biggest problem of this title, as there is hardly any. While the game has a few dozen levels, you’ll always have to achieve nearly identical goals, such as beating scores, surviving waves and so on, which might feel a bit like a bore when you play the game for longer periods of time. It’s the simple mechanics that tend to make up for a lot, forcing the player to keep pressing on to keep beating his scores. While there are a few more costumes and other accessories for your characters, it’s pretty much all about the tricks and catching that perfect wave.
Conclusion
Surf World Series is by no means a bad game, but it might lure in the wrong crowd who are expecting a more realistic game, with more content. Nonetheless, the arcade portion of the game, the different tricks and stringing combos together can be very satisfying. If you add in the interesting soundtrack you have yourself a fairly neat arcade title to pick up in-between bigger titles.
Surf World Series - Review,
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