"Monkey SEA, Monkey DOO"
One of the gaming magazine writers said this about the water effects in Wave Race 64, "I have been on oceans that didn’t look as real as this." I couldn’t possibly hope to top that statement, because it rings so true. This game is a technological marvel. You’ll laugh at the water effects in any game after this. I could use the pun about this setting a new high watermark for H2O games, but that would be too corny. But let me say this: If you have never sea-doo’d before, if you hate water and if you dislike racing games, it doesn’t matter; you’ll probably still love this game. It’s that good.
If I was nice enough to include a quick gameplay sysnopsis in this review, I would say things like: "You race Kawasaki Sea Doo’s, on various watertracks. You can choose between female and male characters, all whom have their own watercrafts and who handle slightly differently. You can perform stunts, with various analog stick movements, and there is even a stunt mode that all you do is perform tricks, like jumps over ramps, flips, handstands etc. These tricks can also be executed while racing too. Kind of like a visual taunt for the other players if you are racing against a friend."
Graphically, this game is beautiful. Seeing the fog on the lake rise as the ducks fly out of your way on Drake Lake, is an awe inspiring moment. Okay it’s not quite the Second Coming, but impressive nontheless. You have to see these waves in action. I’m going to stop trying to describe this game, just go and get it and save me some trouble.
The control of your watercraft is tight and very intuitive. You should expect some learning curve time, but you’ll be manouvering like a pro fairly quickly. Performing stunts takes a while to get the hang of, but once you understand how to do them exactly, you’ll be pulling them off with ease. The execution of the stunts are much easier than the stunts in 1080 Snowboarding, which some of the Wave Race team is responsible for as well.
Well, so far this game has amazing graphics, great gameplay, great control... What else do you want? The music is extremely inoffensive, except for all the swearing. So all that’s left to say is: Own this game. But, and here is the only But: Once you have played this game, beat it and learned all the stunts, really the only thing left to do is show it off to people who have never seen it before. It doesn’t offer amazing amounts of replayability once you’ve mastered it, but nowadays in our sequel hungry society, it probably isn’t supposed to.
Final Analysis: