Gamertell

Just in time for the holiday season, a game that’s perfect for your favorite PC sports gaming junkie has been released through Steam. Shaun White Snowboarding is now available for $29.99 although a hard copy of the game for PC and DS from retail outlets costs the same. The benefit of Steam is that if you find a computer with the Steam client on it that you can sign onto, you can play the game pretty much anywhere. It became an active download in the Steam stores on December 3, 2008. For other consoles and the PSP the game would set you back between $39.99 and $59.99.

The game offers a lot of options and freedom in terms of play. One is the “open-world mountains” that you can board any way you want. Other than the normal snowboarding, you can also have snowball fights, hike through the wood to get to secret areas or film friends in the multiplayer function (the films you will be able to share online).

The graphics are based on the Assassin’s Creed engine, which is absolutely gorgeous. It also features some of the most authentic boarding looks since Ubisoft had a lot of help from White to make the game more believable. Also, Ubisoft made White a character in the game to act as a friend and mentor throughout the course of the game.

Some of the system requirements can be demanding but if you have a newer machine, you shouldn’t have problems running the game. It’s supported only by Windows Vista/XP. The required processor(s) are 2.6 GHz Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800 (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ or better recommended). You need a minimum of 1 GB RAM if you’re working with XP or 2 GB RAM with Vista. The graphics card that is needed is 256 MB (512 MB recommended) DirectX 10.0–compliant video card or DirectX 9.0–compliant card with Shader Model 3.0 or higher. The supported cards list, as provided by Steam, is ATI RADEON X1600/1650-1950/HD 2000/3000/4000 series or NVIDIA GeForce 6800/7/8/9/GTX200 series. It takes up about 8 GB of hard drive space. A DirectX 9.0 or 10.0–compliant sound card (5.1 sound card recommended) is required. The input devices that are needed are either a keyboard or dual-analog gamepad (Steam recommends is the Xbox 360 Controller for Windows).

For multiplayer you would need a broadband connection with a 128 kbps upstream or faster. Then again if you use any games like Team Fortress or other such games, you probably have a good enough connection to be able to effectively play multiplayer without lag.

Enjoy the slopes, sports fans.

Purchase [Shaun White Snowboarding]