Splashdown: Rides Gone Wild

Splashdown: Rides Gone Wild is a fun, arcade style Sea-Doo simulator that puts you on the wet puffy seat of a personal watercraft as it zips through insane watertracks against a score of competitors.

Although this game is a bit more fun than the original Splashdown, a lackluster multiplayer mode and annoying sound effects prevent it from becoming a keeper.

Rides Gone Wild features four types of pretty self-explanatory modes of play (training, arcade, career and versus) and a warehouse where you can customize your Sea-Doo or unlock game features.

Although it's a race game, to win at Rides Gone Wild you'll have to master its three-tier trick system that includes 60 different stunts. The more tricks you perform the faster you can hit your top speed and the less likely it becomes that you will stall out in a race if you miss a turn.

The game has a lot of interesting timed and trick courses, but the most fun you'll have is playing the eight outdoor world courses set in almost miniature golf type surroundings filled with crashing planes, mechanical dinosaurs and ghosts.

Unfortunately, the multiplayer mode doesn't allow you to race on these courses. Instead you'll have to go head to head on the more vanilla indoor tracks ' a big and seemingly unnecessary disappointment.

The graphics, too, are a bit disappointing leaning more toward cartoon than realistic. The audio is downright annoying with lackluster motor sounds and a constant stream of bad voice acting.

Splashdown: Rides Gone Wild is a great single-player game with truly unforgettable courses, but the plain multiplayer levels, ho-hum graphics and bad sound keep this game from making my must-have list. It's worth a rent but not a buy.