If you enjoyed SSX 3, you will be furiously dissapointed with this newest edition to the series.
I'll give EA this much...they tried to capture the look of an bored eighth grader's notebook drawings, and succeeded. Only problem is, that's not such a great thing. The whole vibe of the game is infantile and pathetic. From the minute I was thrown onto the mountain, I felt completely alienated. Ah, here's another thing to mention...what the hell was EA thinking when it scrapped the "One huge mountain" approach. This is a complete step back for the series. There's no sense of connection between these different tracks, and they aren't that well designed. SSX 3's tracks melded together smoothly and were a load of fun to ride through. In On Tour, it feels like these tracks were randomly generated by a computer program that has no sense of taste.
The gameplay here is simmilar to SSX 3, only EA Big has added some new key elements that throw the whole game out of whack. Gone are the Uber tricks. Now you have to fill up your boost meter, go off a jump and hold the right analog stick in any direction to perform a special trick. WHAT IS IT WITH EA AND THE DAMNED RIGHT ANALOG STICK?! These tricks are no fun to perform and take up a lot of time, since the camera goes into slow motion in order to show you how awesome it is. Well, too bad it isn't.
The graphics here are WORSE than in SSX 3. The character models are crap, the environments are ugly...and again...I ridicule this new art style. Speaking of characters, the character creation is a joke. Here is the basic process of creating your own boarder(or skiier...which is a useless and uneeded addtion, since it handles the exact same way). First, you choose a sort of "Vibe" for your character. I have no idea what any of them meant, since they're represented by logos such as microphones, hands doing devil honrs, cobras and such. Funny thing is...there's not that much of a difference between any of these, from an asthetic point of view. Then you get meager options for facial features, but you won't really care at this point. I IMMEDIATLEY HATED THE CHARACTER I WAS PLAYING AS. HATED HIM. I FELT NO CONNECTION TO HIM. I WANTED HIM TO DIE. So yeah...that was a great start. Then, they throw me on the track, I have no idea what's going on, then i'm apparently competing in some sort of...tour...of some kind. Or something. I still don't know. There's absolutely no direction in this game. Do this on this track. Do that on that track. YAY. WHY EXACTLY?! At least throw me a lame ass story or something...like my character fighting for respect in a unforgiving world. Nope. Just grind ten marked rails on that course you don't care about.
Sound. Hmm. Well...the soundtrack is crap, filled with whiny "NU-Rock", obnoxious hair metal and completely out of place rap. Nuff said.
In the end...i'm just really dissapointed. I'm sad. I'm depressed. I know what'll make me feel better...a couple races in SSX 3. There, i'm feeling better already.