A Review of Surfology 101 by InterNetwork Media

First a technical review - I loaded this first onto my HP OmniBook, and thought, nah... This'll look better on my 486 at home". Bzzzzzt. Contestant looses, receives large shock, convulses for a short period of time. The video never ran right. Even after the install upgraded my version of Quicktime. My 486 has 16mb ram, so I wasn't only surprised, I was kinda bummed. I will say that I took no time to call the supplied tech support number and try to resolve this. Sound worked very well though.

So the rest of the review was done on my laptop - 90mhz Pentium, Windows95, 24mb ram, external-cdrom, where it ran very well, with very good resolution of images and quality sound. The producers deserve a hand, as this surf-umentary did have some excellent production of imagery, sound and artwork. This was not done by a back yard surf shop group of programmers.

From the Options screen, where it was more obvious what was on offer, it looks like there are some cool things for a seasoned surfer in this package; a trip to various spots on the world sounds cool (Hot Spots); the Legends section might be promising; Hey! Pollution! Cool... I'm sorry to say that it never came through for me. The World tour? It had some surfing, but it had a lot of scenery too. I want surf! Some of the "clips" were simply stills. Legends? Where was Duke? Eddie? It did cover some Lopez though, so it was not a total loss. Ecology? Mostly encouragement to join the Surfrider foundation, which is truly a great idea, I must say. Though there was some exposure to some pollution that happens on our beaches.

Here is more from the Options screen: Gear, Moves, Surf Speak, Buffed Out, Waves, even Creatures, and more. Hmmmm. We'll come back to some of these.

So let's look at who I think the target audience is, and take it from there. This package is best used by a grom whose mom just thought that, "hey, little Martha might just like to learn how to surf... I'll get her this CD-ROM and let her decide." Cool.

And cool it would be for little Martha. She will find great basic tips on some really important stuff, especially safety. I will say that above all else, this may be the most important thing this product offers to the new surfer. Understanding the ocean is tough for a seasoned surfer on a good day. Knowing how to deal with a rip current is the second most crucial thing to a new surfer. The first being swimming. Surfology 101 did not dwell on this aspect enough though. Anyone who is contemplating taking up surfing should be able to tread water indefinately, and be comfortable swimming a mile at the drop of a bar of wax.

It does a fair review of what you need to get started, in general. Surf board, deck surface, wetsuit, trunks... It even has a good section on how to get started. A guy with whom I'm not familiar, Kahuna Bob, gives a very good beach side review of how to start. Paddling, stroking, standing up, etc.

Once Martha gets tired of learning, she's gonna pull into one of 2 different spots: Buffed out, and Surf Speak. Buffed out? Gimme a break. Stills of various folks, some women in bikinis, some guys in trunks. Next. Surf speak? I'm gonna "hurl". Okay, Martha is going to benefit because when she shows up on the beach, she can try to use some of the lingo, but I'm gonna bet she blows it when she screws up and refers to all the groms in the line-up at a contest. This is rather what gives this disk away as a sell to the wanna-be and the posers.

The Science section may be the best this disk has to offer, in general. It covers some of the science of wave formation. Enough to have a basic understanding of where waves come from. It does not give detail on how various people judge wave size though. Martha is gonna have a hard time with that. She'll learn more from her new surf buddies though. A brief overview of pollution is useful to keep you aware of what impact we have on our environment. However, again, this is an area where the creators of Surfology 101 could have given good warnings about staying out of the water where there is sewage in the water. This is a serious health risk. As for the creatures? It was a cute section highlighting some of the critters we run across. It would have been cool if they had pointed out some fun things to do, like when you see dolphins, dunk your head underwater and listen to them. It might have been good if they had added some tips on how to recover from jellyfish stings (wet sand, and rumor has it that pee [yes, urine] helps), and how to avoid getting stung by a sting ray (shuffling your feet on the bottom).

As a seasoned surfer, Surfology 101 comes up short for stoke. Save your bux for wax or some new booties. Grom? Go for it... Surfology 101is good place to start so that you have a clue about what surfing is about, and how you might actually get started.