Eric Jedd
Equinox Staff
SSX makes a welcome return to the next generation consoles. The game is all about taking on some of the biggest and most dangerous mountains in the world, while pulling off insanely fun and outrageous stunts on the way down.
EA Sports created the SSX game series back in 2000 with the games SSX and SSX Tricky.
These games brought arcade style racing to the snowboarding genre, and left its mark.
Since then, EA Sports has produced five more SSX titles, spanning multiple platforms.
The most recent installment, SSX, is for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.
Story: The story of SSX is not one of depth, to say the least.
The plot takes place with another SSX event on the horizon, but before it can start, one of the members of team SSX, Griff Simmons, the person that funded the SSX team project, decides his money bags are better spent on himself.
He leaves the rest of the team in the powder, and thinks it would be a great idea to do the SSX event of snowboarding nine deadly descents solo. The player goes through a list of characters trying to beat Griff’s best times and trick scores down mountains.
Game Specs: SSX has amazing graphics and some of the most detailed mountain views that NASA helped provide images for. The game also has a great soundtrack that is fun to play to. If the player doesn’t like the tunes provided there’s no worries. With music a player has downloaded on their console, the player can make their own playlist of songs to listen to while racing and doing tricks.
Gameplay: SSX’s story may not be invigorating but the gameplay is what really makes this game stand out. The controls in this game surpass the other games in every way. The player uses the left stick to move the character around shredding through snow like nobody’s business. The right stick is used to pull off tricks, and is very sensitive to different types of movements and angles. While jumping through the air at high speeds, the player can combine movement of both sticks in order to perform sweet tricks to earn points.
The more points a player earns, the faster the “Tricky Gauge” fills up. The player then has the choice of expending the gauge on a speed boost that can provide bigger air for bigger tricks, or the player can choose to save the gauge and push it over into “Tricky Mode.”
This mode allows the player to infinitely boost (until the timer runs out), and it gives out bigger scores for tricks. If the player fills up the word “Tricky” on the screen, the real tricks start.
Once the gauge is filled up twice, players can pull off the craziest, most seemingly impossible tricks with their snowboard and earn huge points.
Littered throughout the game, the player will come across items that help them traverse the dangerous mountains.
This also changes the gameplay tremendously. One amazingly fun addition is the hang glider suit. This suit allows players to traverse huge chasms while gliding through the air, only to land speeding down the mountain at the other end.
Other great installments are headlights to help the player see in pitch black trails, and ice picks that allow the player to shred over ice.
If this sounds really complicated, the game offers an old-school control style for players that prefer the previous games controls.
However, once the player learns the complicated control scheme, fun is not far behind.
Problems: The game is great except for a few difficult aspects that not only hinder gameplay, but also hinder the overall feel of the game.
One problem with the game is that the player will sometimes end up boarding up a hill. Hope that this doesn’t happen often, because when it does the player will get stuck and need to restart the event.
This doesn’t happen that often, but if the player simply pulls off a really big and out of control trick, they may find themselves stuck unintentionally trying to board uphill. Another problem with the game is the odd difficulty pacing. Once a player gets past the tutorial, the player has a few challenges to overcome.
This requires a few re-tries on tracks, but nothing too over the top. If the player takes too many re-tries however, the game gives the player the option to skip the event entirely.
This isn’t that out of the ordinary, because a lot of other games have a similar formula. This one is different. If the player does choose to skip the event, the game counts it as completed, and the player never has to go back to it if they don’t want to.
This creates a weird and lazy atmosphere to the game where if the player fails enough times, the player can eventually skip everything.
Final say: SSX is a fantastic game that has tight controls and allows for amazing tricks and stunts to be performed. That, coupled with great visuals and a great and flexible soundtrack, makes this game is a lot of fun. The problems will annoy some players, and may even cause laziness on those difficult tracks they couldn’t complete. Overall, SSX is still a game worth investing in.
Eric Jedd can be contacted at ejedd@ksc.mailcruiser.com