SSX Message Board

#ssx The Mount Eddie DLC hits tomorrow for the recently rebooted SSX and promises to honor all your fond memories of video game snowboarding from the last console generation. More »

#ssx Fans of EA's extreme snowboarding series were miffed that more homage wasn't paid to the Tricky era of the SSX franchise when this year's reboot came out a few weeks back. (All right, era may be pushing it since it was only one game…) No afros, no fireworks, no disco lights. "What the hell, EA?" went up the collective cry. More »

As people pretty much already guessed, the upcoming DLC for EA's latest SSX title is retro-themed, with a "TRICKY inspired" track, throwback characters and even some old music. [SSX] More »

It's good to be EA in the UK right now, as the publisher holds the top four spots on the all formats sales chart. The company's latest addition, FIFA Street, debuted at the top of the charts, pushing Mass Effect 3 and SSX into second and third, respectively. Fourth is held by stalwart footster FIFA 12.

Chart-Track dug into the archives and unearthed the last time EA claimed the top four spots was in week 48 and 49 of... 2003. At that time -- a tumultuous period, because Madonna kissed both Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera on TV and the world was going to end -- it was FIFA 2004, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Medal of Honor: Rising Sun and Need for Speed: Underground.

The bottom half of the UK top ten is full of familiars, including the sweatastic return of Zumba Fitness. Another reboot, Sony's Twisted Metal, drove into 12th place for its launch. Check out the UK top ten after the break.

#ssx Just like the fine sport of extreme snowboarding itself, SSX's review scores start off pretty high and then suddenly drop. More »

EA's latest SSX game is, at once, a nostalgia piece aimed at recapturing the attention of old franchise fans that have wandered astray, and something of a series reboot, mixing in a host of new bells and whistles and heavy drops aimed at capturing the attention of those who maybe never got into SSX back in the day, but these days are big fans of things like persistent online communities and also dubstep. It's a strange mixture of vibes that, at times, seem at odds with one another. It's as though the team behind SSX were never quite sure how far toward realistic danger nor straight-up arcade ludicrousness it ought to veer toward, relying on the old school silliness of SSX's snowboarding gameplay to carry the load as the team built a gaggle of new mechanics and concepts around it--some of which don't really gel with that classic SSX flavor. The end result is an experience that can often be tremendous fun, though sometimes almost feels accidentally so.

SSX is every bit the glorious mess the previous entries in the series were. Albeit with a few extra quirks that make it messier than usual.

First and foremost, the thing to understand about this SSX is that it controls correctly. The game presents you with a couple of different control options, including a classic style that maps the various tricks you can pull off to the face buttons of the controller, or, in a move that speaks to the great "analog sticking of everything" that video games have been all but obsessed with over the last several years, you can instead opt to swipe the right analog stick in various directions, should that suit your fancy. For my part, I stuck to the buttons, as I felt the timing and responsiveness of the rider on screen better suited my play style that way. The right stick always felt a bit too willy-nilly for my tastes, though perhaps others may see it differently.

Regardless of which style works for you, the greater point is that on the slopes, the action feels fantastic. SSX has always been about speed and the outright obliteration of the laws of physics, and this SSX takes that mantra to absurd new heights. I feel I am in no way speaking out of turn when I say that this SSX is light years faster and more intense than any of the games of yore. Go ahead, pop that copy of SSX 3 back into your PlayStation 2, and then give this one a spin. Chances are, the old game will make you feel like you just graduated from an Edsel to a Trans Am.

The bonus is that it does this while maintaining a sharp visual style and an even sharper frame rate. The game simply doesn't slow down on either the Xbox 360 nor the PlayStation 3, save for very, very minor bouts during some of the harrier races. It's nothing that's going to affect your play, however, though at times, you might actually pray for a bit of slowdown, just so you can regain your bearings.

You see, the one quirk with all that speed is that it can often lead to absolute chaos on the slopes. Of course that chaos comes part and parcel with being something called SSX, but in this version it's almost incomprehensible at times. Smart players will learn quickly that the speed boost is something to be used sparingly in key situations, and not something to be spammed constantly. That might seem at odds with the notion of winning, but it's not at odds with the idea of you surviving.

SSX is no longer just about getting through the courses in the fastest time or with the highest trick score--it's about making it out with your spine still intact. Large precipices and huge, jutting rock formations litter many of the courses, meaning you may very well kill yourself at some point during a race. And by may, I mean you will.

SSX certainly has its moments of frustration. There are certain courses that seem to have been designed with the maximum potential for controller-throwing rage in mind. This becomes especially true during the game's "deadly descents," courses that are purely about survival above all else. These courses are, of course, extremely tricky, and often involve quite a bit of accidental death. You'll have a bit of that on the less-deadly descents too, but the ones stamped as deadly practically require rote memorization of the course to survive, especially in the later stages of the game.

In order to try and keep you alive, EA added a number of equipment types for players to strap on before some of the tougher scenarios. Courses with huge gaps between boardable sections require wingsuits that can be deployed by a tap of the right bumper/R1 button. Icy courses demand ice picks that can be used to help you make sharp turns. Blizzard condition courses give you a pulse lamp that helps identify the terrain during a whiteout, and so on and so forth.

The life-saving equipment added to the SSX formula doesn't always have the intended effect.

They're interesting ideas that sometimes feel like stopgap solutions instead of full-fledged mechanics. For instance, the control inherent to the wingsuit gives one the impression that no one spent much time actually using the thing during QA. It sometimes seemed to just undeploy itself at random, and sometimes just wouldn't travel in the direction I was steering my character toward. The headlamp mechanic is borderline useless, since your field of vision is entirely dependent on the position of your head, and doing tricks often leads to disorienting situations where you have no sense of where you're actually supposed to be.

And then there is the rewind mechanic, that great bastion of all things racing in video games of the last several years, the thing that makes it so that no matter how bad you suck, you can just wipe away all your failure at the press of a button. Except that isn't really the case here. In SSX, rewinding is less of a catch-all failure eraser, and more of a stiff punishment for sucking that begrudgingly allows you to carry on. When you rewind, you're fined a stiff points penalty for every millisecond of time you go backward. And to add insult to your time-reversed injury, other players on the course don't experience the same rewind. So while you're flying backward out of a ravine and back onto semi-solid ground, everyone else is just on about their business. It's an interesting idea that, in certain scenarios, renders rewinding all but useless. On the deadly descents, where point totals and times come second banana to just surviving the damn thing (primarily during the World Tour mode), they're a godsend. In any situation where you're racing other players, you might as well just hit the restart button instead.

The aforementioned issues only stand out so much because they're the bulk of what makes this experience new. It's as if at some point, an EA executive sat down the team, who had been making a perfectly good SSX sequel in the vein of its predecessors, and said something to the effect of, "Look, guys, it's great that you've captured what people loved about the old games. But we really need something new, something hip, something fresh to sell this to a modern audience." Hence, all the rewinding and upgradeable equipment and dubstep.

While those changes never feel organically blended into the framework of what we've come to know SSX as, they can be reasoned with. There's a learning curve, certainly, but there is a time when you will at the very least learn to grudgingly accept them, and manage to work with them. And honestly, I don't want to belabor these points too heavily, because in the end, they're the minority of SSX's overall experience. By and large, the majority of SSX's courses are great. They're fast, fun, full of crazy grindable/jumpable scenery, and for all intents and purposes, feel exactly how you would like SSX courses in 2012 to feel. There are lots of them too, spread across many exotic locales like Antarctica, the Himalayas, and Siberia. It's worth noting that PlayStation 3 players also get access to a bonus mountain in Japan's Mount Fuji. It's a good level with some nifty scenery, but it's not necessarily so great that it demands purchase of the PS3 version. If anything, you should make sure you get the version that coincides with the console featuring the larger friend list.

Engaging in rivalries with friends and strangers is the core tenet of what makes this SSX fly.

That's because SSX's true primary draw is in its multiplayer. To be clear, that's multiplayer largely in the asynchronous sense. SSX takes most of its multiplayer cues from Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit's Autolog, the all-encompassing rivalry system that constantly updates you on how your friends are performing on various courses, all while goading you into trying to beat them. And want to beat them you will.

You'll do most of this competing in both the Explore and Global Events sections, as the World Tour mode is little more than a barren and frustrating single player mode that's more tutorial than campaign. Explore features 150 different variations on the different mountain courses (many of which do overlap), while Global Events focus on specialized events that the entire player base of SSX can simultaneously compete in. Those who perform well on the Global Events will earn a proportionate amount of credits (which you use to buy equipment, outfits, and the like) to the quality of the performance. You can also create your own Global Events and make them decidedly less global, if you just want to play with your friends.

It's these ideas that give SSX its legs, and makes it worth trudging through the initial awkwardness of its other various experiments in how to make SSX appealing to kids these days. It's the "everything to everyone" approach that sometimes threatens to derail this new SSX, but it's the solidity of the core design—the same design that's propelled this series for the better part of the last decade—that makes it absolutely worthwhile.

Ryan and Coonce end a day of snowball fights, snow angels, and sensual ice sculpting with a trip down the slopes.

In my demo impressions I suggested that you lay off the stick because the physics lends itself (themselves?) to oversteer. Some dudes in Europe took that advice to the extreme and this what they got: You can finish a race without touching the controller. More »

Extreme sports games died in the mid-2000s. They were a relic of last generation's ideals, a fleeting memory of joy that developers couldn't capture again. Then SSX rose from the dead in the most spectacular fashion, like Lazarus busting a 1080 nosegrab...

#impressions The SSX demo landed yesterday, with the full title arriving, at last, on Tuesday, rebooting EA Sports' much-loved snowboarding series. The last SSX release was the Wii-only Blur in 2007; before that, SSX on Tour in 2005. It's long enough that even some old hats may feel like newcomers in the seven-year layoff this game has had from traditional controls. More »

#scoreboard News and notes from around the world of sports video gaming: More »

#ssx The dev studios working on EA's upcoming snowboarding reboot are using satellite data to recreate some of the world's most iconic mountan ranges. How do the results look? You can take a gander in three clips above, which take you to near the South Pole, the American Midwest and into a plucky Pacifica principality. There's snow everywhere, waiting for you to own it. SSXis out in about two weeks. More »

As SSX's February 28 release date creeps ever closer, our excitement keeps growing. To get you equally excited we've snagged three exclusive videos, including gameplay that has never been seen by human eyeballs! AfricaAfrica SSX Creative Director Todd Batty described Africa as the "love it or...

#ssx So, I loved the original SSX games. Winter sports never held much appeal to me in real life, but the reckless abandon of speeding down a mountain and contorting a character's body into insane tricks made me a lifelong fan of EA's snowboarding series. More »

At least there's a helicopter that can take you to the nearest...medic tent.

The online pass for SSX will not lock players out of multiplayer competition. Instead, it is used to lock players out of obtaining in-game credits used to unlock content.

EA tells Game Informer that players without the online pass will be able to compete and play in both of SSX's online game modes, "Explore" and "Global Events," but that credits awarded to those without the online pass in Global Events will be inaccessible and banked until they pony up the $10 for the pass.

EA concludes, "Economy balance makes it possible to unlock all available content and allows you to participate in all event drops across both Explore and Global Events, with credits earned solely in Explore."

As you may have noticed during our IGN Live Presents demo, SSX will take advantage of an Online Pass. Anyone who buys the game new will find a redemption code in the box, while used buyers risk missing out and acquiring an expired pass. We asked EA, who isn't a stranger to this business practice, what the SSX Online Pass was all about. Mercifully, you'll be able to play online multiplayer regardless of if you use a code -- but you'll lose out on earnings without it...

Ryan, Coonce, and SSX producer Connor Dougan discuss the finer points of jumping out of helicopters.

We know many of you are as excited for SSX as we are, but for the rest of you, what's the problem? Maybe you haven't seen enough badass footage. Well ok then, here you go! Did that do it for ya? SSX hits the slops on February 28 in North America. And remember our SSX Livestream is Tue...

#ssx The tricks and uber-moves you pull off on EA's SSX games use reality only as a jumping-off point, quickly spiraling into the arcade-y stratosphere. Not a lot of pro snowboarders would fit into this snowy universe. Travis Rice, however, is one of them. More »

EA, in an attempt to gain ownership of SSX.com ahead of the series' February relaunch, challenged Abstract Holdings International LTD's claim on the address, saying that the URL was registered in "bad faith." A panel at The National Arbitration Forum, however, has determined that EA's argument was insufficient.

"The EA allegations of bad faith in part are based upon the lack of due diligence conducted by retailers of domain names like Respondent," the Forum determined. "EA would seem to require that entities like Respondent conduct an international search for relatively obscure trademarks in order to determine whether a name is a registered mark. The Panel is not willing to go so far."

In this case, EA's claim of "bad faith" hinged on the fact that SSX.com briefly contained video game-related advertisements. Since these advertisements are now gone, there's nothing inherently malicious or misleading about the site, negating EA's ability to claim any misuse. For now, SSX.com remains the property of Abstract Holdings, although we imagine several zeroes and a few commas written on EA letterhead would change their minds.

Remember how fun and carefree SSX was? It was simultaneously a better snowboard sim than Amped, and a better cartoon than Snowboard Kids. But much like Pet Semetary's Miko Hughes, raised from the dead by the forces of a cat graveyard, SSX is not the game you remember. It's darker, more twisted... Maybe evil? But that's what makes it so exciting...

#ssx Some players got sick of hearing "It's Tricky" Run-DMC's classic rap song every time you powered up and busted moves in 2001's SSX Tricky. Some didn't. EA's bringing back the snowboarding franchise's unofficial theme song, this time with a remix by a club-ready remix by producer Pretty Lights. The video highlights the Uber and Super Uber moves that you'll be able to pull off in the game. You can read Stephen Totilo's hands-on impressions of the upcoming SSX right here. More »

SSX will be released on February 14, 2012. The date comes from the end of a trailer that has surfaced on YouTube: For now, it's safe to assume that the date only applies to North America, but we'll update with any international release information...

#ssx I like SSX games so much that I know that the person who created the screenshot atop this story named it wrong. Someone at SSX publisher EA called our boarder here Koari. Her name is Kaori. More »

Whether it’s the socially enabled online mode, the deadly new “Survive It” challenges, or the mammoth mountains modeled after NASA satellite maps, the new SSX is hardly short on ambition. During a recent hands-on session, I caught up with art director and series veteran Geoff Coates to discuss how this classic PS2 series is handling the jump to PS3 for the first time.

During our chat, I was able to slip in some questions from the PlayStation.Blog community and squeak out some tantalizing hints of the PS3-exclusive Mt. Fuji level.

PlayStation.Blog: What does the PS3’s technology bring to SSX? What can you do now that you couldn’t do in the PS2 era?
Geoff Coates, Art Director, SSX: I worked on all the previous SSX games, and at the time we had a lot of big ambitions that we couldn’t execute due to technological limitations – whether it was console hardware power or software holding us back. We’ve just caught up now from a technical perspective, so it seems like the best possible time for a new SSX game.

Terrain is a great example of that. Having worked on the previous games, I remember how hard it was for us to create those tracks. Now, on the PS3, we have nine different mountain regions, 27 different peaks and over 100 different runs. That’s something we couldn’t have imagined pulling off on the PS2: those tracks worked more like linear racetracks. Now we model the mountain region in full, then we can drop you on different peaks and you can run them as Race It events, Trick It events, or Survive It events.

The scope is enormous. We have a Google Earth-style interface, and it’s fun to zip around in the UI and check out the global regions. We’ve got Alaska, the Himalayas, Siberia, Patagonia, and on and on.

PSB: The Survive It element was a bit controversial when it was first revealed, with some players worried it was tampering with a winning formula. What’s your response?
GC: When we initially showed the Survive It challenges when we unveiled the game, we wanted to show what was new. The Race It and Trick It events are still the heart of what SSX is all about; Survive It aspect is just an added component. All the stuff you love about the game – the over-the-top tricks, the terrain, the characters – are coming back. Survive It adds a new twist, and it’s compelling partly due to the danger and partly due to helpful gear like the Wing Suit. It’s super fun to shred down a course and know that if you don’t make a big jump, you’re going to fall into the crevice and die. That’s an experience we’ve never had before.

PSB: As EA announced at E3, Mt. Fuji will be an exclusive bonus for PS3 players. Can you give us a preview of what we can expect?
GC: I was actually just playing Mt. Fuji the other day! I can’t share too much yet, but it will fit into the rest of the SSX world. It does, however, have a very distinct look. It look really cool and I think PS3 fans will be excited once they see it.

PSB: What’s your favorite feature in the new SSX? What grabs you, personally?
GC: I really like all the gear enhancements that the characters have now – the Wing Suit, the ice axe or other survival equipment. It’s something we’ve never had before, and they add these really cool layers to the gameplay. And once you unlock them you can use them anywhere… But we have to be careful with something (as liberating as the Wing Suit) so that we don’t mess up the gameplay. The designers have done a good job with it so far: it’s very fun but it doesn’t break the balance.

PSB: One of the key ingredients of any SSX game lies in the soundtrack. Can you share any details?
GC: You’re right: Music has always been a key element of the SSX experience, and it will continue to be so. We’re looking at a lot of things: letting players use their own music in the game, customize their playlist and that kind of thing. In terms of performers and types of music on the soundtrack, we’ll have more to share once those details are finalized.

PSB: The Rewind feature looks pretty cool — if you screw up a jump, you can just turn the clock back with a button press. How do you balance a feature that allows you to literally undo mistakes?
GC: We’re getting really good feedback for Rewind, and we’ll definitely have it in the game. Its impact on gameplay will depend on gameplay balancing – it’s a cool feature, but it will definitely have to have a cost in terms of time or a Tricky boost. We’ll balance that out as we get closer to final.

PSB: How does online competition work? Will there be any way to post run times or high scores to your friends?
GC: The online component and being able to interact with and race against your friends online is a huge component. You will be able to see your friends’ best scores and they can challenge you to races. We’ve also got RiderNet, which allows you to recommend drops and runs to your friends. There’s a lot of interaction with your friends — online is a big pillar for SSX. When I get a chance to see what the online group is planning, I’m always super stoked.

PSB: The control scheme has evolved over the SSX series, moving from the d-pad focus of the first game to a reliance on analog sticks in later titles. What’s your philosophy for this game?
GC: We’re still trying to nail down exactly what the final control scheme will be. We were looking at multiple control configurations, that kind of thing. But one thing our creative director always says is “make awesome easy.” Whatever control config we do end up with, you’ll be able to pick it up and play and bust awesome tricks right away. But there is a layer of depth – it’s easy to pick up, hard to master.

PSB: Race It and Trick It are the stalwarts of the series. What’s evolved there?
GC: Their essence is fully intact. What’s changed is that the design of the world now dictates how you interact with the tracks. The traditional SSX games were highly crafted experiences: it was all about hitting that same jump in a slightly different way to get slightly more air, to earn a few extra points. I watch people playing this game, and they take entirely different paths, different rails, different routes. The tracks are so big and expansive now that you can take many, many routes down the mountain. It’s less about hitting a specific jump perfectly and more about finding a whole new line down the hill.

Some SSX characters are moving from the snow to on fire, from steep snowy slopes to flat parquet floors, from boards to ... basketballs. Boomshakalaka! In a bizarre crossover, EA announced that Elise, Kaori, and Mac from SSX will be a playable team in NBA Jam: On Fire Edition.

If you like the idea of controlling the sweatiest team in Jam history (they're in head-to-toe cold weather gear!), look forward to next week's PSN/XBLA release of On Fire Edition.

Back when the latest SSX was first introduced, players worried that this supposedly "grim, darker" take on the franchise would lose the goofy, colorful elements that made the series so popular. Most of those elements (the over-the-top tricks, the larger-than-life settings, and the extravagantly ramped and rail-equipped levels) have survived just fine according to what we've seen so far, but art director Geoff Coates does that some of the fun had to go.

"If you look at the character design [in previous versions]," he says, "it's characters that are wearing t-shirts and jeans, and dresses or whatever, and they're being thrown out on these mountains." So it's fair to say that we won't see jean shorts or bikinis on SSX's latest class. "The character design now is taking the characters, retaining their personality, but still giving them that survival aspect. You'll see they have backpacks, they have gear that's a little more appropriate."

"And the wingsuits," Coates continues, "are part of that." Yes, the wingsuits. Oh my, the wingsuits.

It wasn't too long ago when the SSX series was all the rage. With four games on the PlayStation 2 (as well as with appearances on other platforms), the SSX franchise was a critical and commercial success for Electronic Arts. But with the release of SSX Blur on the Wii in 2007, which was largely made up of assets from previous games, the franchise appeared dead. Until 2012, that is, when a new SSX is set to be released...

#nbajam If you thought Elise, Mac, and Kaori were hot stuff on the slopes, wait'll you get a load of their moves on the court in the NBA Jam: On Fire Edition. More »