PSPlayground

nathan151 · Thu Apr 20, 2006 8:38 am SSX

There’s only one question you really care about. Have electronic Arts managed the impossible and fitted a whole mountain and the thrill every one has come to expect from this extreme sports series onto PSP? The answer… nearly. There are moments of eye popping exhilaration to be had, hurtling down slopes on a thin piece of wood. But sadly it has come at a price. The SSX-yness is still there, either on a snowboard or skis, and it’ll satisfy those on the go snow cravings. But it’s a thinned out version of its full fat bigger brother on the PS2.
The game offers a mixture of old tracks from SSX 3 with a sprinkling of new ones. The main game is called tour mode and provides skiing and snowboarding events split into three groups. Race (which speaks for its self), Slope Style (which requires you to beat a high score), while Big Air is all about death defying tricks with little run up and spending as little time on the ground as possible. There is also an un-lockable section called, SSX Legend, which is opened, after winning a number of gold medals. This section is technically the hardest races, big air, and slope style events available. Finally, there are practice or challenge events and WI-FI multi-player matches.
Success allows you to unlock new events, equipment and upgrades, but this is an area which can get a bit irritating. You have no control over which skill gets advanced (speed, trick, balance etc) after an event, thus improving your character can take an age. You can on the other hand boost your abilities by winning new outfits and boards/skis. But this at the most can only improve a certain stat by 2 and that usually means wearing some odd clothes, which you would never dream of wearing in the snow. But what baffles me is how on this earth, they supposed to improve you spin or cornering? And where is that jacket that James Bond uses in that avalanche, come on guys you no you would want it in the game.
You can also end up being stuck with certain tracks forever and some levels do end up struggling to keep you interested after the tenth time of trying to beat that guy down the mountain in less than two minutes. The design can also be inconsistent for every moment of perfect runs is an obstacle filled narrow path way in which you must navigate, or else loos the race to some girl who thinks she owns the place. Furthermore for the majority of the events you all alone. You may pass the odd opponent or see a friendly bolder that tries to squash you. It’s a lonely experience. The camera at some points gets rather close preventing you from seeing the whole course. However this is SSX were talking about, taking snowboarding to the extreme, in short bursts the action soars thanks to responsive controls, creating moments that should be honoured by the gaming world. The frame rate is excellent and as far as I know I haven’t seen any of those annoying white lines you get which I think is pretty impressive for a psp game. But over time the frustration needed to progress and the medium variety of tracks sadly prevents it from being up there with the best.

This I’m sad to say scores 8/10. I would have so liked to give it 9 I really would.

Admin · Thu Apr 20, 2006 12:47 pm

omg that review was exellent!
i am deffiently getting it :P

nathan151 · Thu Apr 20, 2006 1:28 pm

thanks :lol:

Admin · Thu Apr 20, 2006 3:53 pm

No, thankyou, lol!

Southparkmaniac · Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:21 pm

Im downloading it now :P geez I hate them pirates :roll:

nathan151 · Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:25 pm

a wawawa