Loosely based on the movie of the same name, Surf's Up for the Nintendo DS is a racing game in which all of the participants are penguins riding atop surfboards. The general idea is that you're supposed to complete laps around a course full of obstacles, turbo pads, and jump ramps. Then, hopefully you'll end up in first place, thanks to some help from the weapon boxes scattered around the track and your own arsenal of trick moves. You'll find that the racing is riotous, tricks are fun to perform, and the 3D graphics really show off the DS's capabilities. However, your time with the game will likely be short-lived unless you can take advantage of its multiplayer options.
In the game, you complete laps around courses situated on ocean or river environments. The game really pushes the system's 3D capabilities. For example, the undulating waters and various island locales look sharp. The frame rate stays silky smooth as the penguin characters speed along, fly off of ramps, and perform goofy tricks. You'll also find that the generic surfer music and various character voice comments set the proper mood.
Every course offers multiple shortcuts, and you'll get plenty of chances to boost, grind, or splash down from lofty heights during each lap. Passing over boost arrows or performing tricks as you launch off of jump ramps will increase your speed, whereas running into rocks, trees, and other obstacles will slow you down. You and your opponents can also make use of six different gnarly weapons to hinder each other. They're the usual assortment of turbos, shields, rockets, homing missiles, floating mines, and blinding muck every game like this has, except that they all look like fish species that penguins might encounter out on the open sea. Weapon boxes are plentiful on every course, which the CPU uses liberally, so each race offers an energetic mix of high-flying lead changes and gut-wrenching wipeouts. The CPU also seems to be able to put up a good challenge without resorting to rubber-band tactics. On the whole, the design is solid even though there's nothing here that hasn't already been done in similar games.
Whenever you catch some air off of a ramp or waterspout, icons will appear on the touch screen that you can tap to make your character perform tricks. You only have four different tricks to pick from, but you can chain them together to create different combinations. Watching your penguin do handstands and backspins as a result of your tapping is quite satisfying especially because lengthier combinations extend the duration of the speed increase you get upon landing. In the beginning, you'll probably feel like it's a waste of time to have to move your thumb off of the buttons and onto the touch screen every time you want to perform a trick. But after a couple of races, you won't even notice your thumb instinctively reaching for the touch screen before you connect with ramps and waterspouts.
The game includes various single player-modes, as well as a multiplayer mode. It only takes a couple of hours to work through all 20 races in the championship. The time attacks and survival races in the free surf mode might warrant some additional minutes. However, if you really want to transform those hours of play time into days, you'll need to take advantage of the multiplayer race mode, which can be done two ways. You can cajole your friends into buying the game and get local races going with as many as eight people, or you can connect wirelessly to an access point to get a four-person race going against random people online. Random is the operative word here because the game eschews the usual friend code system in favor of blind matchmaking. Races played online reflect the usual problems associated with networking multiple systems together over long distances. You won't notice any pauses or jitters in some matches, but in others, opponents will teleport all over the place or the connection will drop. The hardest part is waiting for the game to assemble opponents and get a race going. There aren't many people playing this game online, so you'll often have to sit at the "searching for player" screen for 10 minutes before a race is launched. Regardless of how you get a multiplayer race going, competing against other people can be quite amusing.
Because it doesn't have dozens upon dozens of championships and courses, Surf's Up isn't going to supplant Mario Kart as the racing game of choice for Nintendo DS owners. Nevertheless, it's an enjoyable racer that does right by the movie. Harassing opponents with squid torpedoes and making your penguin break-dance in midair is goofy fun. You'll only get a solid afternoon or two out of the championship mode, but the multiplayer race mode can easily extend your play time by days or even weeks. Just be prepared to wait for people to show up if you're looking for opponents online.
