First ImpressionsTransWorld Surf

It's doing skateboarding and snowboarding, so why not surfing? Infogrames has licensed the renowned TransWorld Media brand to produce a surfing game for Microsoft's Xbox console

In the aquatic world of TransWorld Surf, you'll set out to prove your surfing prowess in 10 different real-life surfing spots, including Todos Santos (Mexico), Huntington Beach (Calif., USA), Pipeline and Backdoor (Hawaii, USA), Hossegor (France), Kirra Point (Australia), Jeffries Bay (South Africa), Witches Rock (Costa Rica), Tavarua (Fiji), G Land (Indonesia), and Teahupoo (Tahiti).

In each environment, your job is to score points by surfing the waves, grinding over boats, tagging rocks, and ollie-ing your way past the competition. It's all about surf style baby! Spicing things up, random events such as photographers, body boarders, and mischievous dolphins will try to break your concentration, while a Karma meter has a direct impact on how easily you can avoid these obstacles and how spectacular your trick capabilities are at any given moment.

TransWorld Surf will feature 13 surfing pros, including Rochelle Ballard, Shawn Barron, Taj Burrow, Jason Collins, Tim Curran, Shane Dorian, Christian Fletcher, Andy Irons, Taylor Knox, Cory Lopez, Dan Malloy, Fred Pattachia, and Chris Ward. Up to four players can compete at any given time, while a mixture of licensed and original music underscores the experience. Similar to the rest of the games in the TransWorld series, Surf includes sponsorship logos and equipment from a number of accessory sponsors, such as DC Shoes, Hurley Clothing, Nixon, Oakley, Quicksilver, and Volcom.

The media Infogrames is passing around for TransWorld Surf suggests a stunningly realistic and beautiful game that takes advantage of all the Xbox's graphical tricks, including dynamic lighting and shadows, particle effects, bump mapping and multilevel transparency. We'll be bringing you hands-on impressions from the E3 show floor later this week.