Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer

The (Tony Hawk) Pro Skater series has long stood as the premier extreme sports franchise across consoles and the PC.  Now, the creators are looking to set their sights on another extreme sport: surfing.  However, instead of slapping on a few skateboarding moves and switching from sidewalks to waves, Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer completely builds from the ground up, approaching surfing with a blank slate. The result is one of the best surfing games ever, providing a fun and challenging experience that both surfers and non should enjoy.

Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer allows you to control nine different pro surfers, ranging from Tom Carroll to Lisa Andersen to the man himself, Kelly Slater.  The career mode will take you to a variety of distinct locations, like Antarctica and California, as you search out waves for the perfect ride.

The mission system is very similar to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.  Being a more trick based game than a realistic simulation of surfing, most of the missions require you to either keep your special move gauge maxed out for a certain period of time, perform a succession of moves or simply get a high score.  Completing these missions will unlock different boards, cheats, and beaches to surf.

The controls in Pro Surfer (assuming you have a good analog gamepad) are extremely fluid and responsive.  After partaking in the tutorial, you should be performing carves, grabs and aerial tricks with the best of them.  Only the sketchy camera led to some problems in the control department.

The PC version features the three multiplayer modes in the console versions: Push, Time Attack and Head-to-Head.  Push mode has you trying to score a higher score than your opponent and push them off the screen (make the screen smaller for them essentially), Time Attack lowers your opponent’s time limit for their run by your high score, and Head-to-Head is a standard surf-off where the person with the highest score wins.  The lack of online play may disappoint some gamers.

Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer has some great graphics, featuring some of the best water effects in any game.  The waves break and roll realistically, and water reflects the sun gorgeously.  The character models can be a little stiff looking, but the framerates are great, moving at 60 fps even on low-end machines.  PC gamers also benefit from higher resolutions, which look excellent.

The music is a great departure from the Tony Hawk and Mat Hoffman series.  Instead of fast and hard punk music, the soundtrack is lined with mellow tunes from both well established artists like Jack Johnson, Ben Harper and Pearl Jam as well as lesser known underground acts.  The sound effects are largely composed of the ambient roar of waves and the occasional yelp from your surfer if they bail from a particularly nasty wave.  Kelly Slater provides his voice in certain spots to give hints and help out with the tutorial.

Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer is a fun title that offers some of the best surfing gameplay to date.  While playing on the keyboard is not really recommended (you’ll want a good analog gamepad), extreme sports fans that didn’t get a chance to play this game on consoles last year will do good to check it out now. 

Gameplay: 8.9
Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer provides some of the most fun surfing to date in a game.  The controls are extremely fluid, the physics are great and the trick based gameplay is fun and challenging.  The only problem was the somewhat limiting camera, which got in the way of some of the mission goals.

Graphics: 9.0
The water graphics in Pro Surfer are fantastic.  The waves break and roll realistically and reflect sunlight.  The character models look a bit stiff, but otherwise well-rendered. The framerates are great, moving at a very smooth pace even on low-end machines.

Sound: 9.0
The soundtrack is composed of a great mix of mellow and acoustic tunes from artists like Ben Harper, Jack Johnson and Perry Farrell, perfectly setting the mood for a surfing game.  The sound effects are made up of ambient wave noises, and the voice acting done by Kelly Slater (giving the occasional hint and guiding the tutorial) is good.

Difficulty: Medium 

Concept: 9.0
Pro Surfer provides a fun and addicting game of surfing, with plenty of extras and goodies for those who play through.

Multiplayer: 8.5 
The game features the same multiplayer modes found in the console versions and no online play.

Overall: 8.9
Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer is a fun and engaging game that provides a great take on the surfing genre.  While the keyboard configuration might not work for some people (trust me, an analog gamepad is highly recommended), the controls are fluid and the wave physics are great.  Any extreme sports fan should check this one out.