Short Version: Shaun White Snowboarding Road Trip for the Wii is a must-have game for anyone who owns a Balance Board and is even remotely interested in snowboarding.

Long Version: The Wii, she’s been a fickle mistress. I fell head over heels for her when she first hit the scene but the glaring omission of decent third-party titles has caused a rift in our relationship wider than the special pants she had to purchase after she “let herself go” once I’d been roped in. I’m happy to report that I’ve fallen in love with my little white console all over again thanks, in large part, to the new hope that the team at Ubisoft has given Wii owners everywhere.

Good: Gameplay, gameplay, gameplay. That was supposed to be the Wii model; simple games equals fun. If you’ve ever snowboarded before or if you at least understand the basic concept behind snowboarding (or other board sports like skateboarding or surfing), then you’ll be able to pick up the game in less than a minute. Hop on the Balance Board and lean left and right to steer. Those are the basics right there.

The presentation is also impressive for a Wii title. You travel with a group of friends chasing Shaun White across the world, picking more and more friends up that you meet along the way, and for each run, you pick one person to work the camera and one to actually ride for points. Your camera person will ride behind you at all times and when you fall down you’ll kick a bunch of snow onto the camera, covering the screen briefly. It’s a simple but cool effect. The menus and cut scenes are well-done, too. A bit cartoony, but everything definitely works.

Bad: The game is a completely different animal if you use just the Wii controller without the balance board. You’re able to pull off insane tricks a la SSX Tricky by EA Big, which some people might like, but while the Balance Board provides a pretty good sense of realism, playing the game without the Balance Board is a much different experience.

Also, the game itself gets a bit repetitive after a while. You constantly chase Shaun White from city to city, unlocking different runs and mountains before you can move on to the next city. Furthermore, you don’t actually play as Shaun White until the end of the game and you can’t create your own customized player. That being said, I found it fun to just flip on the game at the end of the day and cruise down the mountains for a little bit. It’s kind of relaxing if you can get past the urge to plow through the game unlocking everything.

Recommendation: If you already have the Balance Board, you should seriously consider this game. It’s a great example of what the Balance Board can do. Don’t buy the Balance Board just to use with the game, though, and maybe only buy the game for use with just the Wii controller if you’re really into snowboarding games.

Video: Check out some of the menus and gameplay.

Shaun White Snowboarding [Ubisoft]

Is it still called “PC gaming” when it’s done on a Mac? I’d ask Ubisoft, which just announced that Prince of Persia and that Shaun White snowboarding game will be available on the Mac in March, but it seems my Internet connection is being censored by The Man right now. Censorship makes the Internet Jesus cry.

Right, so the games will be available to download from Ubisoft’s designated downloading Web site. I hear that Shaun White game was a bit of a disappointment, and Zero Punctuation didn’t like Prince of Persia, either, so…

More importantly, does anyone know why that YouTube censorship thing is happening to me? I’m currently in Portugal, so maybe the country’s or the hotel’s ISP is run by the Taliban? Me is confuzed!

Sorry about the delay, folks. I’m in Korea this week and find myself with zero Wi-Fi access. Strange considering this is one of the most wired (’wired’ being the operative word here) countries in the world. Anyway, without further ado the winners of the Target Limited Edition Shaun White Snowboarding for Xbox 360 winners are…

Kevin D. and S.F.

Check your inbox, guys.

Thanks to Target for hooking us up and in-turn hooking you guys up.

Sorry about the delay on this contest, folks, but it’s been busy around the CG office with John gallivanting around Europe spreading his seed all over Marie Antoinette’s watch and all. So, without further ado let’s start this contest. If you haven’t watched our video interview with Shaun White then you’re basically out of the running. Just kidding, but you have to watch the video or you’ll have no way of answering the questions. We’ll give you guys until Thursday at 9PM EDT to win a copy Target Limited Edition Shaun White Snowboarding for Xbox 360. There are two copies up for grabs.

Now, there are two ways of winning, so stay with me.

1. What kind of headphones does Shaun use when he’s riding? Send in these answers to contest at crunchgear dot com. If you leave them in comments then they will not count.

2. Tell us why you love us in comments. We want answers with some feeling, people!

Good luck.

Here’s the interview I promised back on Friday with Shaun White. YouTube wasn’t keen on my 17-minute interview with the snow/skateboarding sensation so I had to move it to Blip and by that time it was around 8 PM. In short, Shaun White is a PC, doesn’t like the iPhone, loves his BlackBerry, is a big fan of iPods, and almost ate it during our interview at the CG office.

Oh, I haven’t forgotten about the contest either. We’ll post that later today.

That’s right, readers, we’re interviewing Shaun White tomorrow to talk about his upcoming video game from Ubisoft: Shaun White Snowboarding (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii). We want to know what you want to know, so drop your questions into comments and we’ll be sure to try and get them answered tomorrow.

Oh, and we’re having a contest to run in conjunction with the interview to give away two copies of Target Limited Edition: Shaun White Snowboarding, so be sure to check in tomorrow afternoon around 6PM EDT or a little earlier.

The special Target limited edition of the game will have exclusive extended content and features that consumers won’t be able to find anywhere else, including the addition of a fifth mountain – the Target Mountain – and the ability to ride on Shaun’s board.

Shaun White Snowboarding will be hitting stores this winter and the Wii version will make use of the Balance Board for a quasi-realistic snowboarding experience.

The game itself looks pretty cool — you’ll need to travel around the world in the hopes of finally meeting up with Shaun in Park City, Utah. One seemingly odd feature is that you’ll need to pick a suitable cameraman before you hit the slopes and, while snowboarding, your cameraman can give you little boosts. The game’s being developed by Ubisoft, so who am I to question the inclusion of camera operators?

IGN Wii via NWFB