Shaun White Snowboarding (Wii)

I got home at 2:45pm today, having left work earlier than usual because of the heavy snow. Thirty years ago, if school had been closed because of the snow, I'd have been straight out in it, not coming home until I was in tears due to my wellies being packed full of snow. Nowadays, I'd rather be inside where it's warm. But it seemed only right today to have some kind of snow-related fun, and so I fired up Shaun White Snowboarding for the first time.

You can probably guess that I bought Wii Fit with my Wii: my wife, Lorraine, quite fancied it at the time, and I'd promised the family a Wii when we moved into our house. Of course, we've both used it once each, and the balance board sits and gathers dust under our coffee table.

But with the purchase of Shaun White Snowboarding, it looks as though the balance board might finally get a bit more use. Unfortunately, I have a bit of a problem with the balance board, namely that I can't actually balance. I don't know if it's because my feet are too big for the board, or if I've got an as-yet-undiagnosed inner ear condition, or if I'm just hopeless. So what you'll usually see is me leaning forward like Eddie The Eagle in a crosswind, just to have my character go straight on. And as soon as I stand normally, the character goes veering off to the left, usually into a tree or obstacle, or away from the reward or stunt that I was heading straight towards.

It's a bit of a shame, but I'm sure that a quick recalibration of the board will sort that out. And even with this problem, I still find Shaun White Snowboarding to be a lot of fun. It's not going to give you anything like the workout that Wii Fit does, but if you fancy a bit of SSX-type fun, albeit gentler and less extreme, and you've got a balance board sitting idle, then you really ought to pick this up.