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Surf Riders
  PS1SportsUC  
  opened by paleface at 00:04:33 09/07/08  
  last modified by paleface at 12:27:18 03/05/24  
  paleface [sys=PS1; cat=Sports; reg=NA]
           
Tiny and interesting game from Sunsoft, but apparently not actually released in Japan. So limited in scope that it seems almost like a graphic demo: you start your surfer on a wave, pound buttons to get up to speed and mount the board, then try to juke back and forth to both keep your speed right, stay inside the wave's "tube," and try to increase your points by doing tricks.
 
Just getting up onto the board is a trick in itself, and the second is staying on the board for more than a few seconds. Not easy, but the ridiculous challenge and the simple controls are somehow compelling. I never actually made it up to being able to do actual tricks, but apparently there aren't that many, and there are only five (or so I read on GameFAQs) waves to ride. A group of us trying it didn't get far at all with the first wave in a half hour or so of trying, so how long the whole thing would last, I'm not sure.
 
The designers used some interesting graphic tricks to simulate a wave and frothing water, and, while clearly low-res and low-poly, it really doesn't look all that bad.
 
It feels like an experiment or a mini-game, and I wouldn't have been at all happy buying this at normal game price if I'd been shopping for games back in the day, but as a brief exercise in precision controller work, it's kind of neat.
    

 
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