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Another Gamerpoint Whore game turns up from Lovefilm and this time it’s an Ubisoft movie tie-in that enters my gaming slot.  And this time, I have actually enjoyed whoring my points.

The film Surf’s Up was a surprisingly enjoyable kids cartoon, brimming with originality in a crowded market.  The game at least attempts to ape this with a similar eye to quality.  The game follows a rigid structure in which you enter an area, and compete in three or four events within each area.  Each event follows the same structure.  A wave appears to the left of the screen (or occasionally right) and you are placed on a board.  Various obstacles are placed in your way and it is your job to surf along, gaining speed by riding the wave, and performing tricks to get your combo bar up.  Once it is full you can activate your special power and rack up huge points.  each level has three main objectives (two of them score based, and one making you surf through gates) which encourage you to approach the level in different ways depending on what objective you’re aiming for.  There is also a fourth objective which is less obvious.  ”Trophies” (in the shape of animals) are placed throughout the course.  Collecting these will give you achievements and perhaps more importantly you need them to unlock later levels.

The game is relatively short with only about 12 levels in all – and the dedicated gamer will need to repeat each level several times in order to unlock the points.  This may sound like it will get old quickly, but surprisingly it doesn’t.  I enjoyed the time I spent with the game very much.  It doesn’t throw achievements at you easily meaning you do have to work your way through, and despite the fact that it sounds repetitive it never quite managed to get boring.

Sub games which are unlocked by trophies involve your character leaf sliding down a perilous course.  There are three of these – clearly based on Princess’ slide from Mario 64.  At first these looked like they might be a fun mini game but with only three of them they wont divert you for long.

I ended up with 800 points from this with 25/29 achievement points.  At this point I gave up as the remaining 200 points were based on trophy collecting and I found this quite difficult.  As you are constantly on the move on your board, it would be quite easy to miss one and it started to frustrate.

However, if you are looking for a fun way to boost your score this game can actually be recommended.  I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with it and the 800 points were enjoyable to get.