With the great processing power of the PS3 and the big hype prior to this game expectations were high. The game doesn’t live up to all those pearly snow peaks.  Ubisoft  seems to have tried to do backflips to get the attention of the teen males that the game is obviously designed for, but not for females.

Even though you can choose a female character to play the choices are very limited. She ends up looking kind of homely. The outfits for snowboarding which should be a rad feature for girls in the same age group just isnt stylin’ either. So you have a double standard in the developers expectations to begin with.

For instance the menus are bright reds and are difficult to discipher. More attention was paid to making the screens look like an accessory for a car rather than something that conveys information. The navigation and the missions, called Shaun’s challenges are a bit obscure to get into.

The buildings and other areas around the slopes sren’t interactive you can’t go inside the buildings. There aren’t enough RPG elements to make the game feel complete.

The game begins all at once without any sort of tutorial. Pop ups may give some occasional tips, but there isn’t any instruction process. Mainly you’ll want to do the tricks. But if you stray off, or try one of the other areas you may fall victim to an avalanche soon after the helicopter drops you off. There is no explaination how to avoid these, or how you triggered them. You are left to your own devices to figure out the game functions.

Park City and the game’s three other mountains in Europe, Alaska, and Japan are supposed to be all open world. But I found that there were many problems leaving the main area. The was nothing in the environments to distinguish the runs in Japan,  you just saw these long pipes going down.

You are expected to figure out his quest , andcollect tokens. Collecting tokens power up the character. Finding them would be long tedious and annoying. The map function is poor and the compass is innacurate.

The only sweet part is when you try to get the most air you can. That is  rewarding in itself. Though that alone may not be enough to carry this game. First it needs to function better off the snowboard. All the details it needs to take the open world concept full on, aren’t there. It takes alot more work to make a game good and not just say that it is. In some areas it can take several minutes to get from the top to the bottom. The board actually acts to differently depending on the surface. Such as ice or powder. The boarding itself had the most attention paid to it. If Shaun keeps his career up and there ‘s a sequel the game has potential. In the mean time this one might be worth a rent.

I give Shaun White snowboarding 5 ugly girls snow boots out of 10.