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Dom Robinson reviews

SSX On Tour

for Xbox

Distributed by
EA Games

    cover
  • Price: £39.99
  • Players: 1-2
  • Widescreen: Yes
  • Dolby Digital 5.1: Yes
  • Xbox Live-enabled: No
  • Downloadable content: No

One of the PS2's early highlights was the SSX series, notably the original SSX and the follow-up, SSX Tricky. They looked and sounded fantastic, they drew you in quickly and you felt the exhilaration.

I didn't get to play SSX3, alas, but this latest title, SSX On Tour allows you to break out of the usual mode of it being a simple arcade game to one that allows you to progress through the ranks and climb the Top 200 snowboarders leaderboard so you can become king of the mountain. And yes, it did come out a while ago, last October, but we only got hold of it recently, in March 2006, which coincidentally was spot-on timing for it to start snowing again sporadically in the North.

There's a nice cartoon opening sequence set to Iron Maiden's Run To The Hills, all in Dolby Digital 5.1, hinting at how you can effectively create your own character for this game rather than relying on already-created ones like the previous games in the series.

game Pic One thing SSX On Tour introduces is Shred challenges. These are off-track races that allow you to try showing off from unusual parts of the track before you continue on the tour, such as 'grabbing rail' for 150 metres before the timer runs out, collecting 15 'collectables' again or attempt a number of jumps to score points, or simply race against a CPU character 1-on-1 down the mountain against the clock.

In fact, as alighted to earlier, the basis of this game is to play a series of challenges and races in order to increase your rank. It's annoying that you tend to get more challenges than actual races so if it's the latter that you're after perhaps you should stick with an earlier release in this series, which generally makes me think that this feels more like an add-on than a full game. And the races also concentrate heavily on one aspect of snowboarding whether it's scoring for points or just getting to the finish in the quickest time.

That said, if you're the type of person who likes to see and old game try something new and to have a bit of management thrown in then you'll be pleased to know you can buy new equipment at the Gear Shop including new surf boards that cost anything from $1,000 to a cool $2m. In fact, you can also play on skis instead of a snowboard but I've done that in too many winter games before and here it's clear that SSX is where snowboarding's at.

game Pic Comparing some of the good and not-so-good aspects of SSX On Tour, it's a real boon that this release allows you to tap 'X' to recover after taking a tumble so you don't end up with the others racing ahead - something that really got on my nerves in the previous games. I also love to flip 360-degrees the way I have before now, and one thing I haven't come across before - the Handplant - means you can reach out and hold onto a bar, stopping and effectively doing a handstand along the way.

You can get extra boost by performing tricks, although if you're constantly trying to up your score then you fall behind in the task to get down the mountain first so it's difficult to juggle both balls up in the air simultaneously and I did prefer to just race at speed and there was more of that in SSX Tricky than there is here.

One aspect which did impress was the way the in-game music starts to get a little distant the higher you jump, as if the speakers are on the ground and you can't hear them when you're not at the same level. Similarly top-drawer is that it's very quick to re-load a level back in when you want to restart it after failing.

Also, for those wondering what they can listen to as they glide down, there's lots of grunge music on the soundtrack and it's also possible to make your own 'mix tape' compilation, although you can't mix in any of your own music already stored on the Xbox's hard drive. However, there is a good selection if it's all your kind of material.

game Pic And on to the duffer parts of SSX On Tour. Firstly, you're not alone. Pardon? Yes, the contestants are not the only ones going downhill while you're out and about. The other people on the track are so bloody annoying. They're not part of the race and when you're heading along at speed the last thing you want to do is crash into them and lose the race. Why isn't there an option to switch them off?

The menu system and the general way the game plays inbetween actual racing has had the stylish look replaced with one that'll appeal to teenagers who consider themselves 'rad surf-dudes'. It's a bit cute at first, but does start to become annoying.

With this release, a major cardinal sin is that there's only one mountain, albeit with various routes, not several different mountains. There is also a 'Quick Play' option with some of the old characters and unlockable ones, but again... it's the same old mountain and not the courses I've played on previous games.

And something that happens rarely but is still a bit of a nag-nail, there's always the occasional spot on any course where you'll fall through something solid into a 'void' for a few seconds before the game realises you're not supposed to be there and puts you back on the course, and this happened in 'Tricky' as well.

game Pic SSX On Tour looks and sounds great, but so did the previous games when they were released, and SSX Tricky on the PS2 also had DTS 4.1 sound so was an outstanding game to play. Like the earlier games it's also easy enough to pick up and play if you give it enough time to get into it.

Overall, you find yourself wishing for more races rather than shred challenges, which just feel like mini-games, so I'll probably be spending more time in future back on the slopes of 'Tricky' than this tour, although it has to be said that the ability to press 'X' to recover is a godsend I wish I could install on the other games.

GRAPHICS
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ENJOYMENT


OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2006.

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