This new, exciting, feature filled take on the SSX franchise brings the snowboarding action to new highs and lows alike.
(-) the oxygen mask concept isn't well thought out / aggressive track design can also lead to a lot of repeated trial-and-error deaths / some of the music remix effects are annoying / the rewind feature is pretty useless, except in Survive It modes / no simultaneous multiplayer or split-screen could upset some
This generation of gaming has started to show a trend. A trend of once forgotten franchises coming back up from their hibernation, and modernize the genre they lead with a self-titled installment. Whether you remember the long-warn days of SSX 3 to be the last worthwhile trip to the mountains, the more modernized and polished SSX On Tour, or maybe even SSX Blur on the Nintendo Wii if you're one of the few who counts that as a major installment. No matter which of these games you remember, it's been a long time. There have been a dearth of worthwhile snowboarding games this generation, but SSX on the PS3 and Xbox 360 looks to change that.
There's a reason that SSX has always been at the top of the hill. What it does, it does well. It's the hilariously exaggerated, over the top snowboarding action pioneered by a simple control scheme and pick-up-and-play appeal which has always governed the franchises' success, and rest assured that SSX will thoroughly satisfy any craving you might have to take to the bitter cold mountains in the safety of your living room. But this is by no means a by-the-numbers rehash, which coincidentally has also been a big part of this gaming generation. SSX is a completely different animal than its fellow brethren in many ways, some of the changes are exciting while others are frustrating, but either way you'd be hard pressed to miss out on this beautiful update to the long lost formula.
Your rider enters a helicopter with your wing-man who follows you throughout the event, giving you tips, encouragement, praise, or criticism through their intercom speaker. You'll spend the bulk of your time in SSX doing racing and tricking events for supremacy down the games various different mountain peaks. And boy howdy, are there a lot of them. SSX takes you all the way across the globe, to places like Antarctica, Africa, Himalayas, and Japan. These mountains on offer have all sorts of different personalities and in turn different skills you'll need to succeed on them. They're gorgeous to look at, and have numerous gateways of alternates routes and slants you could use as a half-pipe. SSX is stuffed with content from top to bottom, and it'll alone be enough to satisfy any craving you might have for snowboarding for months to come.
There's still a handful of tame mountains which allow you to take a joyride down the mountain with minimal worries. But you'll also face mountains with turns sharper than knives, random crevasses eager to gobble you up, and trees and rocks placed in the worst possible spot imaginable. SSX has always had a thing for trial-and-error game-play, but this latest game takes it to a new extreme. A lot of these mountains are trying to kill you, and guess what? You don't pop back up on the map when you fall off. This can make retries immensely frustrating, but at the same time brings about a new level of satisfaction at winning events because you also had to conquer the mountain that was fighting with you every step of the way.
All you have to assist you in these difficult slopes is a rewind feature which'll allow you to rewind time if you screw up. The usefulness of this rewind feature is questionable at best though. In races, the other riders still move like normal after you use a rewind, making it pretty pointless as it just makes you further behind. In trick events, they deduct points and even screw up any point multiplier you have going on at the moment, making them something to avoid even more. They're really only useful in Survive It events, where you're a lone wolf traveling down the mountain seeing how long you can last before getting incapacitated by the numerous hazards, though you're only given three of them.
You can play SSX 2012 about three major ways; the World Tour, the major single player experience, Explore It, an arcade mode where you unlock other peaks with in-game currency, and Global Events, the game's idea of multiplayer. The World Tour mode attempts to build a somewhat forgettable though passable narrative to tie all the races together with a sense of purpose. All the familiar characters you remember from the SSX Team, like Zoe and Mac, look to prove their worth by taking on the most perilous descents known to mankind. Until their former member Griff who looks to beat each member to it all by himself, because he's apparently that good. Then it turns into an all out war against the groups on who can survive the bitter cold and shocking altitudes and come downhill before the rest. It's a solid narrative, but nothing memorable. You also get some comic snippets to view during your time in the tour which give you a little back story about the characters and their aspirations, what lead them to the SSX career, be it a vision, the desire for fame and fortune, or otherwise.
And what about the events themselves? SSX brings back the joy of snowy mountain racing with great results. It's as fun as it ever was grinding down the rails at high speed, doing insane tricks which'll deflate Shaun White from the inside. Just like previous installments doing tricks will add to your boost meter, which this time around its called Tricky, and upon filling the meter you'll have unlimited boost ability so long as you continue to pull of cool tricks. The Survive It Events also bring a brand new dynamic to the action, adding layers of tension and urgency as you fight off the worst conditions. There's also various tools you might require to enter certain mountains, like a wing-suit which you deploy at impossible jumps to glide like a flying squirrel, which can be awkward but at least adds some variety to the action. You'll sometimes need a headlamp to ride through darker mountains with limited visibility, and thermal protection for the coldest of the cold of temperatures, where just a few short seconds in the shadows could lead to your doom.
All of these gimmicks add some insight on the harsh realities that snowboarders are familiar with, but some of them don't work out so well. You'll need an oxygen tank in order to keep breathing on mountains at such a high altitude that you couldn't get a clear breath otherwise. This requires you to press a button when the before the screen turns completely dark starting from a waning circle. This is more annoying than anything else, especially when you're already going to be busy fighting the stingy mountain and pulling off risky maneuvers for tricking points.
There's some cosmetic changes which also add to the experience more than you might think. Little things like a massive ground wave pummeling the ground after you land a massive trick get you deeper immersed into the action, just like the adaptive music which intertwines with your actions. Even if you have a custom soundtrack, the game will remix the music, muting the pitch when you're getting a lot of air, them blasting it away upon landing. However, some of the effects are more vexatious than they are cool. For example, when you grind on rails, sometimes the music will skip like a bad CD. Not sure who thought that was a good idea.
Unfortunately SSX has an odd omission. Anyone whose most cherished gaming memories involve tricking and racing their friends on snow mountains via split-screen multiplayer on their PS2, are going to be flattened to hear that SSX continues the trend of ignoring split-screen multiplayer. Though numerous sources do suggest that it might be added in the future through a software update, as of this writing its not there though. Even more unusual is the lack of traditional multiplayer where you race people in real time. SSX tries something different with its Ridernet system, which works about the same way as Need For Speed Hot Pursuits "Autolog". There's daily and weekly events held daily where thousands of players can post records and ghosts of themselves, allowing people to compete against each other whenever its convenient for them. A lot of these events require a point admission however, and sometimes restrictions on the board and gear you can use. But you earn credits depending on how you place, and it can be fun booting SSX up because you'll be notified how you placed whenever each particular event expires.
There's also a fun little Geotag system which works both online and offline, which allows anyone to use their rewind feature to place a tag anywhere on the track. Whomever grabs it gets points, but the longer its out, the more points you get for it. If it expires, which it will if its not collected within twenty four hours, you'll get maximum earnings for it. It can be fun placing them at the bottom of death pits or behind the starting line, and its always fun grabbing someone's too obviously placed Geotag, because it gives you something to strive for no matter how many times you repeat the races. It's nice to have all of this community stuff linking the players together, but its a shame that it had to substitute traditional multiplayer.
SSX on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 takes the famous snowboarding franchise to brand new heights and lows alike. But despite the odd disappointments, there's no qualm in saying that this is the snowboarding game that this current generation has been needing. It's got enough locations to explore to keep you satisfied for months to come, beautifully detailed visuals and classic joyful snowboarding action to boot. Heaven knows it won't be easy enduring the harsh terrain and weather conditions knocking on your door, but if you take the plunge, you'll be glad you did.