Carve

Can this Jet ski racer carve a niche or will it sink without trace?

Sometimes a game comes along and whilst not attaining perfection still manages to introduce new ideas that change the benchmarks by which titles of a genre are regarded. Carve however, is not one such title, and ambition is certainly not its tragic flaw. That said, what Argonaut attempts with their nearly-canned "watercraft racing" game, they achieve with some skill, and at a budget price point on Take 2's Global Star label, it is certainly deserving of further enquiry.

Of course if you're an Xbox gamer with a penchant for watersports titles, then the Jet ski touting Carve may be right up you're alley, especially with the multiplayer support for four players and an Xbox Live online mode the developers have thoughtfully included. On the other hand, if you've yet to be taken in by a virtual watersports offering, a la Wakeboarding Unleashed, then Argonaut's latest is unlikely to sway your opinion for the scope of the game remains very narrow.

That said, the simply gameplay mechanics can be picked up in a matter of minutes, and the basic controls (the right trigger controls speed, the left thumbstick direction, whilst the four major buttons control stunts) are forgiving. The availability of tricks won't be tempting any SSX fans to stray anytime soon however, with around twelve moves created using button combinations, which can be mastered faster than you can shout "power gives way to sail, swines!"

Four 'signature' moves are at the disposal of Carve's eight colourful characters too, and these do 'mix-up' the gameplay a little, whilst never looking like moving the game play away from the firmly derivative. This said then, and it becomes clear Carve's primary pleasure in life is racing, and this it pulls-off with some aplomb offering a consistent and frenetic experience, which places the emphasis upon the minutiae of control to differentiate between competitors. There will of course be a variety of obstacles on the courses to avoid and bounce-off, not to mention some fun jumps to be used for trick-shows upon your whim. This is all well and good, but longevity won't be one of Carve's selling points; a fact emphasised in the lack of difference in style and ability between characters whose stats a supposed to vary. To be fair though Carve isn't the only game to suffer from this problem.

Races are timed and require you to complete laps within a time frame, as well as forcing you around red and yellow buoys which denote the side on which to pass them - mess up a turn and you'll lose time, and if you're late to the checkpoint you could be disqualified, likewise if you pass a buoy incorrectly more than five times. Not that this is a major headache in Carve, indeed at times I was left craving for something more of a challenge - as the rival racers could be rapidly bettered too.

Despite the simplistic nature of the game play on offer then, Carve does have a fair compliment of game modes to have a play with, including quick match, arcade, tournament, time trial, and online. With the quick match and arcade modes predominately being home to the four-player split-screen option, the majority of the lonesome fun you're likely to find in Carve will be in the tournaments mode. The winning of tournaments is what incentivises Carve, offering the player the prospect of new courses, tricks and enhancements, which should make you a more competitive racer all round.

Online and Carve offers pretty much all the usual suspects such as chat and a leader board, as well as offering both an eight-player or team-based race mode. The latter basically pairs you with another character combining your scores and misdemeanours, though beyond this offers little new other than a spot of enforced camaraderie. Apparently, this 'team'-based effect is present in the singleplayer game between characters too, though I rarely felt its effects if ever.

Visually Carve looks rather nice, the all important water effects working well alongside some pleasing scenery, though still offering nothing that Pandora Tomorrow need worry about, or indeed anything that makes up for the game's mediocrity in other areas. Audio likewise suffers from the same problem of insubstantiality. In fact, this thought surmises the entire Carve experience succinctly, the game exuding a sense of incompleteness which - fortunately - is also reflected in the commendably sensible price-tag (I've seen this product marketed online for £17.99).

Whilst Carve isn't bad in any sense at all, then, it isn't particularly inspiring either and sometimes this can be more disheartening than a daring title gone-awry. Having said that, Carve's stunted development history perhaps offers more than a hint to the reasoning behind the game's obvious limitations, and fans of the genre should perhaps satisfy themselves with the knowledge that Carve was perhaps only saved from oblivion by Take 2's timely intervention.

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By Luke Guttridge