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Dom Robinson reviews
Sony
- Price: £39.99
- Players: 1-2
Billed on the front cover as “the best launch title for the PS2”,by PSM2 magazine, SSX is certainly the most enduring game I’ve playedon the new console so far.
I normally hate the winter – it makes your hands chapped, helps your car skidabout all over the road, usually into someone else’s and makes getting up forwork on a cold morning a real P.I.T.A. However, if it wasn’t for winter, wewouldn’t have snow. Without snow, we wouldn’t have snowboarding and withoutsnowboarding we wouldn’t have this game.
There’s a number of different ways to play, starting with the ‘Single Event’or ‘World Circuit’ modes, all of which have a ‘warmup’ selection inwhich to practice, a ‘showoff’ – for you to demonstrateyour tricks – and ‘race’, the actual focus point of the game. This isn’teasy though. I’ve been playing it for a few days now and still can’t get offthe second level as you need to come first, second or third in the QuarterFinal, Semi Final and Final rounds, before you can save your position.
Choose one of four characters, pick an outfit and a snowboard, all from aninitially-limited selection that will expand as you progress through the game.Cut to a sweeping series of camera shots of the mountainous… er… mountainyou’re about to negotiate and you’ll be filled with fear as you wonder howyou’ll make your way down without breaking your neck.
Graphically, SSX is stunning, your rider moves with lightning speedand so does the scenery as it rushes up to meet you. Only a couple of timesdid I see some clipping as I saw what would be the ‘underlay’ of themountain, were such a thing possible.
Some sports titles are a little lacking in sound FX, but this game has itin spades. From the mesmerising menu sequences, with echoing voices, tothe screaming of your character and the descriptions and comments about thetricks you’ve performed, it’s an aural treat.
The control system is usually fine, but when you crash into a post and can’tget out of the situation, it becomes a dog, making you twist back the wayyou’ve come from before you can turn back in the right direction.
When time is tight and you can’t move forward, it becomes a major frustration.The game will put you back on course when it deems necessary, but sadly this isnot a manual option.
Where it works fine, you can increase your speed by bending down or withthe adrenaline button. Performing any one of the massive variety of trickscan be done fairly easily, but only providing you have enough room beforeyou hit the powder again.
Overall, SSX is brilliant, its only downfall, if that can be classedas one, being its originality. Several snowboarding games have come and gonebut this one builds upon them all and smashes the competition.
When you start playing though, cancel all other engagements. It’s certainlygot that “just one more go” factor.
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ORIGINALITY
ENJOYMENT
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.