Water sports isn’t a genre that is often seen in the gaming world. However on the odd occasion such as the N64 hit Waverace they do tend to show off a bit. Now we have a potential for the Xbox called Carve. Being released as a budget title for £19.99 and featuring Xbox Live support means that this title may be worth a look. Although not being funny or anything but every time I hear the name Carve it keeps reminding me of Sunday Lunch! So will Carve end up in the rubbish or in our Xbox hall of fame?

Gameplay:

Carve is all about racing and on water using jetskis. Nope the game decides to take on the toll of racing around a circuit with 8 riders in total. A few tricks are thrown in to boot. Now I say a few tricks because realistically there aren’t that many, for example the ‘Trick Tutorial’ mode only gives you 8 examples of tricks and you’re left to figure the rest for yourself. That’s fair enough and gives you a bit of time to get into the game and the tricks too. What the game is also lacking is tracks as there are less tracks than tricks by a considerable amount, to be more precise - 5. Now as previously mentioned there are 8 racers in total and come in teams of 2, they supposedly have their own differences but having used all the players I haven’t seen the slightest bit of difference.

Now that may have been a little bit of a negative start for the game but it’s something that will hit you hard once you get further into the game. The game places you in a championship featuring 3 difficulty levels (with 2 optional ones aquired further into the game). The courses aren’t half bad with some variation of the layout and multiple routes which feature different and quite nice scenery(but why they would hold a race in ice cold water who knows). There is not much sensation of speed really as the Jet Ski’s seem quite slow and not as fast as they probably should be in a game. Having to follow colour coded buoys around is frustrating but opts for a bit of challenge really. If you do good enough tricks you will be rewarded with a boost which makes the game nice and fast but that should be the speed all the time really, then there’s the double boost just a little bit faster and can only be used when you fill up the meter, which is never because there’s never enough ramps or time to do them.

The game controls relatively well with steering fairly simple as much as accelerating is with no brakes or so it would seem. Tricks are a little bit harder to pull off but nothing beyond the average gamer. The difficulty in the AI is stupid at first as you destroy the opposition but stands to get a little bit harder each time you go through the championship. Overall the game feels decent to play but feels as if there isn’t a lot to it. realistically it has the feel of an arcade game, ideally something that would last half an hours play at most because lets face it the game hasn’t a lot to offer in terms of depth (ahem no pun intended).

Graphics:

Generally the graphics are the best feature of the game, the water and splashing effects on the camera are on par with the very best ‘water’ type effects I’ve seen on Xbox to date. The character models look nice although they don’t actually move too much. Landscapes are very well rendered and are very pleasing to the eye although there are a few repeated textures though. I’m not complaining about the graphics as I already said they are the best feature of the game and don’t disappoint.

Sound:

Not so much bad just annoying; Carve is one of those games that you really need to head into the options and turn the in game music off and defiantly a game where “custom sound track support” would have been very much appreciated. Seriously though, the game music featured is very much in the dance genre but lacks any variety and soon become extremely repetitive. The sound in game is slightly better, although again soon becomes repetitive with all the Jet Ski’s sounding the same and nothing like their real life counter parts.

Longevity:

Carve has a certain level of punch behind it when it comes to Longetivity as it has various modes of play including quick race, arcade, tournament, time attack and trick tutorial. The real jewel in the crown is the Xbox LIVE and system link support though which will keep you racing for weeks.

Via Xbox Live and System Link, you can play 1-4 players on one machine, 1-8 players with 2 Xboxes and on Xbox LIVE which really gives Carve a new lease of life, you’ll find plenty to entertain and challenge you in your quest to win each and every race or competition. With Xbox LIVE support you can find an all new place to Race and hang out taking in all the water sport fun you can handle with your online friends.

Overall:

Argonaut have been very bold by making a water sports game, a gap in the market - a good move? Only time will tell. One of Carve’s strongest selling points is that it’s an Xbox budget title coming in at just £19.99 which really helps to make this a worthy purchase especially for those with xbox LIVE.

Xbox LIVE users will find much more to Carve than the been there done that feel of the single player experience and be provided with many hours of fun racing online with their buddies. The game is visually pleasing to the eye but fails to produce any major "wows" overall.