Shaun White Snowboarding: Origins

What is it about games with boards - skateboards, snowboards, surfboards - always being accompanied by teeny-bopper emo rock?

I never met a single skater or snowboarder who modelled themselves after the teeny-rocker Bill and Ted brigade with half-open eyes, wasted half-smiles, and a head lolling around like their neck was made of rubber.

They'd fall off their boards, for one thing - much like the game's performance.

So right off the bat Shaun White Snowboarding: Origins loses a point for being thoroughly unoriginal in its depiction of snowboarders, but struggles with the technical performance are cause for greater concern.

Graphics and gameplay help it to reclaim its footing to a point, even if the iffy performance keeps it wobbly.

Shaun White Snowboarding: Origins strikes middle ground between realism and arcade antics. You're not bogged down too much in the intricacies of balancing on your board, but neither are the tricks outrageous enough to break the illusion.

The accelerometer takes care of your directional movement and it works beautifully. The game doesn't ask much of it, but tilt controls fit virtual snowboarding perfectly and give it a genuine sensation of cutting through soft snow.

The tricks might not want to be too outrageous, though they still need to be at your fingertips. The only button you have while racing across the powder is a 'boost' button (which also doubles as a jump button when tapped, rather than held down), but once in the air a D-pad and virtual snowboard appear for tricks.

Left and right on the D-pad set you off spinning, while up and down perform more adventurous flips. A semi-transparent board acts as a four button controller for additional stunts, and by tapping the sides, the back or the nose, you'll grab the board in the corresponding area.

Combinations of the D-pad and board buttons are then used to build more complex tricks, which only require you to land with the board back in the right position to bring in the points.

All of this adds up to a classically styled, great looking and very accessible snowboarding game. Unfortunately, Shaun White Snowboarding Origins puts some serious strain on iPhone 3G, which struggles to provide a smooth ride down the mountain.

Pressing the 'boost' button, for instance, results in serious lag that doesn't kick in until seconds after you actually needed it. Stuttering play and jerky scrolling are the result of this overworked CPU, which doesn't seem to improve a great deal even after a reboot.

A 3GS handles the game nicely, but it's difficult to ignore the issues on older handsets, especially when the struggling system causes you to make a whole load of extra mistakes on top of your own.

The asynchronous ghost races (against yourself, friends and the leaderboard champions) provided by the inclusion of OpenFeint are a terrific idea, but again the lack of processing oomph makes them a bit too stilted to provide a working challenge.

A rather small amount of venues and boarders is also of concern. The lengthy tracks and network features encourage replay, but without a proper career mode, more unlockables, and generally more content it's difficult to be convinced.

With some optimisation for iPhone 3G and more content, Shaun White Snowboarding Origins would be the benchmark 3D snowboarding game the platform needs. For the moment, its powder seems a little dry.