Activision has been releasing various extreme-sports games throughout these last years. It all started out with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, which had a colossal success on all consoles and it slowly expanded to include other extreme activities. This is one of them.

Kelly Slater, as you might have guessed, is a professional surfer (male, not female as you might assume by the name) and also the new testimonial for this franchise which hopes to capture the attention of those wave-loving lunatics who spend their time jumping in the ocean and getting tossed out of it. Not that I have anything against surfers, I've actually tried it myself a few times. Unsuccessfully, of course.

The developer, Treyarch, has adapted Tony Hawk's control scheme for their new game. So, for example, the special meter that we've all learned to love will be used. For those newbies to Activision extreme-sports games out there, it consists in a build-up meter to perform new tricks and manoeuvres during your surfing experience. The game is loaded with tricks; consequently, you'll never get tired of it.

Activision and Treyarch provided us with three main modes: Career, Free Surf, and Challenge. With these you can (once again, like the Tony Hawk series) unlock other boards and new levels. The Career mode has you accomplish various goals to succeed while the Free Surf speaks for itself. Challenge will have you compete in an assortment of difficult situations. The multiplayer also deserves a positive note, seeing that it will feature (along with the classic Head-to-Head) Time Attack and Push.

The surroundings are beautiful and auspiciously numerous: Melbourne Victoria; Mundaka, Spain; Misaki, Japan; Pipeline, Hawaii; Sebastian, Florida; Bells Beach and Teahupoo, Tahiti. All wonderful locations where you can hit the waves and perform some efficient cool tricks with the world's most notorious surfers: Kelly Slater, Tom Curren, Tom Carroll, Lisa Andersen, Bruce Irons, Rob Machado, Kalani Robb, Nathan Fletcher, and Donovan Frankenreiter. To tell you the truth, I've never heard of any of those but I'm sure any surfing fan has.

This game is original in some ways and not so groundbreaking in others as it takes a lot of its gameplay features from other Activision games. It definitely is a great game for all those people who are into surfing or extreme sports or are just looking to have a good time riding the waves.