I've been sort of waiting for a solid game to play on my balance board and this is is... the water is beautiful and a game with water sports like this is a great idea and really good mix of game play types...

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For some reason the kids never really got into this game and I've only seen them playing it a few times. I'll probably resell it on the used market. Fortunately, there is a good market for all Wii games. I wish you could try them out before you buy them as it is hard to tell what will be a hit until you use them.

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I agree most with C. Pittman's 1/3/10 review.

menu:

there are only 4 games, easy/normal difficulty (I guess hard is locked) & choice of 3 male/female teams. you can select different courses on a poster of a world map with tacks showing different cities/countries.

sound/music:

the music is elevator style, there are no other sounds but water & any motors & I think a grunt if you bump/slam into things. no cheering, no boos, no sounds from AI opponents, nada.

graphics/presentation:

your character falling is the best part & seemed to have the most effort put into it, it's almost decent animated like how one would fall in real life (a couple times I almost squinted b/c it would have hurt if it was real.) the water was decently done, but more PS1/PS2 graphics at best. all the courses looked the same & all the coastline looked as generic as can be with nothing to differentiate it from any other courses. the biggest problem is there are no shadows or textures, so it looks like everyone is more floating then surfing or riding. it's hard to judge distance because of this as well & your character is VERY small w/the camera far away & very high up.

gameplay/AI:

boring/dull because of the above problems everything seems so lifeless. wii fit mini games blows these out of the water easily. (no pun intended,) I tried this first w/the wiimote & though I hit 7th place at first a few time playing around trying to figure what I can & can't do (used game, no manual) as soon as I did one ramp well I was in first every time even though I would drop into 7th messing around. it makes things easier for kids, but I awear I was in 4th, fell & was in 7th right at the finish line & the AI practically WAITED for me so I was in 5th, almost 4th. all the games played the same, repetitive & lifeless, old atari games had more depth, fun & demanded more skill.

controls:

wiimote works fine. balance board is sensitive, but deal able. EXCEPT mine kept blacking out every few seconds w/white letters saying to replace my batteries in the BB. I hit home to check the batteries & they were almost full. I tried another "activity" on this game & the same thing, it was annoying with all the flashing. I put in wii fit plus in immediately to prove it was the game & played for 30 min before I had to do something else with no battery issues.

even if you're a balance board game collector, pass on this. even "go play circus" is much better, much less wii fit/wii fit plus & super monkey ball step & roll just came out. there are also several 5-12 dollar wiiware games that also use the balance board like overturn, equilibrio, tetris party (tetris party deluxe on disc is coming soon), rock & roll climber, snowboard riot, etc.

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Not bad to make use of the balance board and add more variety. I agree with the other reviewer who commented that all of the activities all pretty much play the same, though. There is some variety in the scenery (which is pretty to look at), but the actually game play and controls all kind of have the same FEEL from activity to activity. Because of this, I tend to get a bit bored with this one after a while and will switch to a different game.

That said, this still isn't a bad game if you are looking for a little variety, and if you want to get into some water type activities without investing in the sports resort (and motion plus controller), this is worth a try. This does not utilize your Mii character.

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This game is fun for a little while, like 15min then it gets old. The play is the same for all four games whether your kite surfing, water skiing, or whatever. The jet ski game is a alittle different because of the board orientation. I got the game as a gift and will definitely trade it in a short while. It's not super challenging, nor does it give you much of a workout.

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Just bought this game looking for more games that use the balance board. I have to say the graphics are weak, as is the reponse of the board, Better to play w/ just the remote. The game is - just ok- I got tired of it after 15 min as all but the ski doo are pretty much the same.

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I would not recommend this game, especially for younger players. Here are a few reasons:

1.) The 4 "game choices" are basically all the same. You just go through the same courses on different equipment... which may be cool if you were actually on the water. However, in a video game, it is basically just a slightly different look to the same game.

2.) The graphics are not that great. We have an old Play Station 1 with 1999 circa games with graphics this good (bad?).

3.) When using the Wii Fit Balance board, the game is nothing special. There are at least 10 built in games on the Wii Fit Plus that are much better than this. Why pay for this when you basically already have it?

4.) This game does not utilize your Mii charaters. You basically have to set it up new when you play it.

5.) Using the balance board is almost impossible for my young children. It is very difficult to control. Some may find this "challenge" welcome... but it was frustrating to my kids.

6.) The game controls are not as advertised. In the promo video, it appears as though you are using the Wii remote along with the Balance Board in a cool fashion. Not really... you basically use the balance board to control steering left and right... oh boy, what fun (not). And the Wii remote, well, you use that basically just for "throttle" (go/stop), or to perform tricks.

7.) While performing tricks... unless you have a very big screen TV, the graphics are so bad, you cannot even tell the various tricks apart. It just looks like the person flips around a little bit, but nothing awe inspiring.

8.) There may be some features that we did not "unlock", but it seemed like this game was not very "rich" in features. In this day and age, you expect games like Mario Kart that have lots of cool characters, and different vehicles, and short-cuts to find, new tracks to open up, etc. I did not feel any of this with this game. Seriously feels like a 1990's game repackaged for the Wii 10 years later.

The one cool feature we enjoyed was that two players could play at the same time where one player controlled the speed boat, while the other player controlled the wake board.

So my kids tried this for about 1/2 hour... That is about all we got out of this game... then they went back to playing the Wii Fit game... and have not played it since!

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