Whitewater Video Games Some video games have players blast asteroids. Now there's one where players can blast waves—and surf and cartwheel and run slalom gates—all from the simulated seat of a whitewater kayak. "We're creating a kayaking computer/video game that will have a three-dimensional environment," says Mitch Norton of Minneapolis, Minn.'s Head Games (a division of Activision), which plans to release its Extreme Whitewater video game in July. "It should be pretty fun and realistic." Already the creators of similar games for mountain biking, snowboarding, snowmobiling and waterskiing, Head Games saw it as a natural progression to create something similar for whitewater. To keep it realistic, the company went to the experts at Harriman, Tenn.'s Dagger for advice. The result is a game where players drive to a dealership and choose one of a number of Dagger kayaks—including such modern models as the Vengeance and Medieval—and then click what event they want to participate in, whitewater slalom or rodeo. Users can also select between practice and competition modes, and select venue sites. Moves and strokes are controlled with the keyboard, mouse, joystick and/or game-controller. "They gave us six different boat models to have users choose from," says Norton. "And it'll have multiple river venues for users to test their skills, with points awarded for different moves. It will also have a section awarding points for technical routes." Although it has yet to see the final version, Dagger is as excited as a kid in a video arcade about the venture. "It's a unique marketing gimmick," says Dagger's Tom Windham, adding that Dagger sent the company J-Pegs and CAD drawings of its boats to use in the game. "Being boaters, you want it to be as realistic as possible, so it was nice that we could help contribute to it." Windham adds that Dagger had been approached before by companies trying to create similar games, but that earlier efforts fizzled out like a blown-up asteroid. "These guys were real aggressive and have a proven track record," he says. "It wasn't too hard to get excited about it." —For more information, contact Head Games at (612) 942-5202 or visit www.dagger.com.
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