Splashdown

""A Perfect Game" 'Nuff Said..."

Splashdown. The water effects on this game are aimed at TOTAL realism. But, this game would be nothing without a solid gameplay, great controls, nice music, and enough to keep you going for a while.

Gameplay – 10/10
This game is one of the best games to date. This game is centered on 4 modes of play. Training provides you with an overview of the basic controls and advanced controls. Career Mode lets you pick a racer, and let you race 20 tracks as you battle for first place. Out of the 20 races, 4 are ''Challenge Rounds'', and allow you to compete against 1 opponent of your choice, and bring them onto your team by defeating them. Arcade mode lets you do whatever you want, such as racing, free ride, and ''Countdown'', in which you go around in a specific track collecting balloons, each one adding time to a time limit. The object of this is to see how far you can go. Very fun two player! And finally, Vs. mode, which lets you play ANY mode in Arcade mode, but also adds ''Copycat'', a version of HORSE of basketball, in which you perform a trick, and the other player must perform the same trick, or they receive a letter, and the first one to spell ''Splash'' loses. The gameplay is awesome, with great control over your Sea Doo. There are basic controls, but there are many advanced techniques that can be executed, but they take time to master. You can dip your Sea Doo under the water, perform bunny hops, and do a 360 degrees back flip! There are also a large number of tricks in the game, some easy to perform, and some not so easy. Also, every character has their own character specific trick, and these are quite cool. Tricks also have a purpose during a race, unlike ATV Offroad Fury, or MX 2002. Performing more tricks during a race builds up your ''Performance Meter'', and this increases your top speed, as well as your acceleration rate. Now, about the tracks. There are a total of 21 tracks (1 secret one), all having distinct characteristics. Some tracks are loaded with ramps for performing tricks, while 1 of them has almost no ramps for just racing. Also, track layouts actually differ with each difficulty level. Easy and normal have the same track layout, and hard has harder AI, as well as different track layouts, which I have never seen in a racing game before.

Presentation - 10/10
The menus are cool, and they even have wave effects on the menu when you click something, it generates waves, which is very creative. There are many characters that are able for play, including 1 racer who has stats that are maxed out completely, and it is very fun to be him. The other characters are also fun to be, and I don't think there is 1 racer that I wish was removed. They all have different statistics, and each are good at different things, such as top speed, acceleration, handling, or stability. Each racer also has an ending movie which is unlocked by beating Career mode with that racer, and you can watch them anytime thereafter in the options menu. They are very funny, and worth beating the game for. The load times are very good, averaging about 7 seconds to enter a race, and there is no loading times back to the main menu after a race.

Graphics - 10/10
This is where the game definitely shines. The graphics are very good along tracks, and the racers, but the water looks so real, you wonder how it looks so good. No other game that contains water has graphics this good, and I don't think it can be done better, as it looks so real. The waves along the courses also look very real, and the water near the shore even is a little bubbly like it usually is. You have to see it to believe it. When racing, the waves you make even look real, and racers behind you actually have to ride the waves you make. It is almost like they got real water footage, and put it into the game. The lighting on the water also looks real, and the water running off ramps is very realistic. I must also admit, Wave Rally for the PlayStation 2 as well, looks like it has great water effects, but I have not personally played it. But, I have played Wave Race: Blue Storm, and the water effects in that game are nowhere near the effects in Splashdown. I could go into MANY more things about the water, but I must move on.

Sound - 10/10
The music in this game is much like ATV Offroad Fury, or MX 2002. It sounds very good with what you are doing. There are 12 songs, and this is enough for them not to get old. Even the music played in the menus is worth listening to. 1 song I dislike on this game is All Star by Smash Mouth. But, this is no reason to give Sound a 9 instead of a 10, as some people might like it. The sound effect of the Sea Doos sound very good, and the character voices are pretty good, although I think some of them are supposed to be funny, but it all sounds fine.

Replay Ability - 10/10
No game would be complete without good replay ability. First of all, this game takes a while to go through it, and unlock everything. First, you must unlock tracks, characters, and the essentials in racing games. Then, you must collect ending movies for racers, and different colored wet suits, scattered around the courses in Easy/Normal, and Hard. Easy and Normal have wet suits, and Hard have their own wet suits. They correspond to different characters, and different colors. These take a while to collect, but add to the fun of the game. Afterwards, you can race, play Countdown, find a friend for Copycat, or anything else on this game. It is quite fun to play this game after completing it.

Overall - 10/10
The big question.
Rent or buy?
If you like Sea Doos, buy it. If you enjoy racing games, buy it. If you like games on water, buy it. If you don't like any of these things, buy it.
Go ahead, rent it. But all I have to say is that it is a waste of 6 dollars because you will like it. So buy it!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/17/02, Updated 01/17/02