Chillingo's Billabong Surf Trip is now available in the App store. This iPhone-based surfing game is the first surfing game released since Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer in 2002. Why has it been so long since somebody came out with a surf game? Simply put: It's not easy to do the sport justice. As a surfer myself, I can appreciate how difficult it is to mimic something as unpredictable and random as the action of a breaking wave.
With that in mind, I took to the the iPhone to sample Billabong Surf Trip — not only to let you know how it compares to previous surfing games, but to see how it stacks up to actually being out on the waves.
When you start the game, you can either go on a surf trip or straight to a surf spot. All surf spots are earned through a points system similar to Transworld Surf and Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer. While you have several ways to customize surfer appearance, wetsuit style, and board shape, pro surfers are noticeably absent — you can only be a generic male or female. Andy Irons, Taj Burrows, and the rest of Billabong's team pop up intermittently in the menus with advice about the game — that's it and it's a bit disappointing.
There are a number of famous surf spots to take your less-than-famous surfer, including: Jbay, Mundaka, Tamarindo, Teahuopoo, and Pipeline. The designers of the game stressed the research and development involved with the wave type and appearance at each spot. While I have never surfed at Pipeline I have surfed Huntington Beach, so I figured I'd start there to make a comparison. It must have been "Big Wednesday" because I was able to pull into a 15-foot barrel heading straight for the pier in no time. Patrick Swayze would've been proud. I don't remember that happening when I surfed there. Of course, a surfing game with mediocre waves wouldn't be much fun at all. While the waves may have been larger than real life, there was some realism to be found. I liked the random variance of wave size — you could definitely see a difference in the first and last waves of the set.
Like many arcade-style iPhone games, controls are found on the bottom of the screen in the form of two virtual joysticks. The 22 maneuvers available do take some practice; you won't be doing Supermans at Hossegor straight out of the box, but with a little practice, I improved fairly quickly. There is an option that allows you to play the game via tilt control, which I really enjoyed. Swinging your iPad around on crowded planes or buses is a small price to pay for catching the perfect wave.
I wasn't able to get a close look at how the visuals looked on an iPad, but on an iPhone they were crisp and clear. A good thing, since a surfing game with bad-looking waves is…I don't know, it's just bad. Thankfully, that's not a problem here. I'm not saying that they look amazing, but they get the job done.
So is this the next great surfing game that people have been waiting for? I'm not sure if it qualifies as great, but at $2.99, I think that the average landlocked surfer looking for an escape will appreciate the accessible gameplay.