I tried surfing once. I almost died.
Got caught under, board came up and smacked me on the bridge of the nose. Spun under and tried swimming back but too disoriented.
Eventually made it back somehow but I was done with surfing.
Needless to say, I’m not a big surfing guy, not even in video games. Doing tricks and all that on the waves in real life seem pretty cool, but in a video game seems kinda lame.
But the upcoming Surf World Series looks like one worth trying, even for non-hang ten fans.
The new gameplay trailer shows customization (nothing new to any game) and the techniques and tricks that appear to mirror real life surfing (pretty interesting). Some of the flips feel more like Lego Dimensions than a surf simulator, but I’m pretty sure it’s humanly possible, for the most part.
The one thing that seems artificial are the waves, which come rolling in quite evenly – more like a water theme park than the actual ocean. But trading a little bit of reality for gameplay hasn’t hurt anyone as far as I know.
So far the game only features 5 places. It’s got Australia and Hawaii, of course. I’m hoping it’s got Maverick. I go to Half Moon Bay several times a year for crab. I love crab.
You have to complete challenges to advance. There’s also an online tournament where you compete against 15 other surfers – that could be interesting.
I’m not familiar with the different tricks, but according to the game’s website, there will be Superman and Sushi Roll, which I guess are what they sound like.
So, it doesn’t seem like you need to be a surfer to play this game, which is nice for the casual gamer…and much safer, too.
On PC, Xbox One and PS4