Immediately, what will grab your attention is the visual re-creation of water in this game. Rainbow Studios has nailed the look of stagnant seawater. Not having significant waves to deal with was disappointing at first, but you'll forget about it soon enough. It sloshes around ever so smoothly and realistically, and the light reflection coming off the surface really brings the whole scene together. It's somewhat translucent but not clear like a glass of water, which is the right way to go. What they have avoided is the jelly-like appearance and motion that plagued previous water racing games. The water is a solid foundation for what turns out to be an all around good-looking game. The rest of the environment won't hold your eyes like the water during the game, nor should it be the focus. It still looks good using bright colors and locations. The crafts and riders are equally as sound. The characters in the game take on a cartoony, exaggerated look like they came out of a comic book. The usual stereotypes apply. The big muscular guy is fast but doesn't handle as well, and the little cute girl accelerates and turns quickly but lacks top speed.

The motion of the crafts and their animation is what really sells the game as a top-notch looker. This is the same team responsible for ATV Offroad Fury, which was a superb 4-wheel racing game that snuck out early in the PS2 lifecycle, and it shows. Just like in that game, you feel totally in control of your craft thanks to the ability to change the pitch of the vehicle. Pressing forward on the analog stick dips the nose down while pulling back shifts the rider's weight to the rear lifting the nose out of the water. This can be manipulated both while you are in the water and when you are in the air after a jump. The way this feels when actually playing is completely natural. When you take a tight turn, you can dip the nose a little for that extra leverage. Then you can slowly raise the pitch as you exit eventually shifting your weight to the back for more speed. The order of actions is very precise. If you were to dig your nose in to the turn and pull back quickly hoping for that extra speed, you'd actually pop the craft up into a little bunny hop and lose speed.

If it were just you on a few tracks, I'd wager that the game would still be fun for a quick pick up and play due to the enormous amount of control you have over your craft, but there is still a lot left to the gameplay. There are multiple modes of play that cover the normal range of quick race, multiplayer, and most importantly career. In the career mode, you choose a rider and a difficulty level. You race through a series of tournaments with each earning you points toward the overall year-end championship. In these courses, you will come across a number of obstacles and jumps as well as the other riders. Reefs and pieces of junk float in the water to get in your way, while the jumps are actually there to help you out. When you hit a jump with a decent amount of speed, you have an opportunity to pull off a trick. These tricks boost a gauge that directly affects your vehicles top speed (and it's noticeable). The bigger and harder the trick, the faster the gauge fills. Wipeouts and riding without tricking will eventually bring the gauge back down to normal. The stunts are easy enough to pull off with only the hardest of them really being a pain. Some of which involve full circle motions while holding a trigger.

During the career mode you also have the opportunity to have more riders join your team. This comes in the form of a one on one arena race, and they are none too easy. Once you best your opponent though, they will become a selectable character before each race during the season. This allows you to exploit each rider's strengths based on what the course has to offer. Along with gaining extra riders, this mode also opens up the tracks you race in the single player mode at different times of day. You can also score some new clothing by finding it scattered in hard to access places on the route.

Like all of Infogrames games I've played recently, they've spared no expense for good music in the game. It's all done by licensed bands, and the variety of the rock tunes matches perfectly to the upbeat nature of this racing game. The characters all have voices, and it's cool to hear them shouting at each other or cursing at them as the case may be. The SeaDoo sound effects and the splashes of water are all par for the course.

I tried not to make any comparisons during the review, but I'll lay my opinion flat out on the line now that I'm at the end. This is a better game than Wave Race: Blue Storm. It may not have the wave physics that Nintendo's racer has (or many waves at all for that matter), but it runs away with the look of the water, control, and playability. This is a difficult game on the harder levels, and there is a bevy of game time to be spent playing through the career mode on all the difficulty settings. The subtle nuances of the pitch control alone are enough to keep you coming back for more. This is some of the best fun you can have on water while you are dry in your living room.

Click Here to purchase Splashdown from Amazon.com