There aren’t a whole lot of video games that are based on surfing. Yeah, there’ve been a few, but not compared to, say, soccer or stealing cars and beating up hookers. But wait! There’s a new one! Surf World Series is coming out next year for Xbox One, PC and PS4, none of which I have ever owned because video games are dumb and my mum preferred that I play with earthworms (delicious), sharp sticks (great for stabbing earthworms), and matches (cooked earthworms are more delicious than raw earthworms).
We do, however, have some kind of video game system in the office, complete with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer. I think it’s an Atari, or perhaps a TurboGrafx 16, two very old systems that, judging by the mid-’90s look of the trailer above, would be perfect for Surf World Series. According to Jack Manoogian of Inertia fame, the last surfing video came out way back in 2003 when Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer came out. Since then, though, gamers have had to actually surf if they want to experience surfing, which is total bullshit. Yeah, there’s a VR headset, but I’m pretty sure you’ve got to be really rich to have one and if there’s one thing that gamers and surfers have in common, it’s that we’re usually broke.
To be fair, though, making a video game about surfing probably isn’t all that easy. Fluid dynamics isn’t exactly simple physics, but Climax Studios, an independent games developer from the UK, is taking a stab at it. They’re the same people who created Assassin’s Creed (which I thought was a movie coming out soon) and something called Balloon Chair Death Match (which is a game I would definitely play).
Surf World Series is coming out in 2017, and if you have any sense of personal responsibility for overcrowded lineups, you will give up surfing for it.
