SSX

October 23, 2000 - Cool Boarders, 1080, Pure Ride, whatever. The snowboarding genre has never seen a game as good as SSX and sad reality is that the chances are that it'll probably never see one that's better unless it happens to be surpassed by its sequel. The plain and simple truth is that SSX is really more than just a snowboarding game, as it does much more than any other game in the genre has accomplished before it. SSX is a brilliant blend of fast-paced racing with high-flying trick performing, blended together so beautifully that it has produced a game that feels completely original and in a class all of its own.

Gameplay
There have been a lot of games that have been based around racing, trick performing, or a combination of both, but none have ever been put together as well as SSX. The way that the Canadian developers have been able to meld the elements of racing and trick performing in the game have never been so perfectly blended in a game before this. All of this begins with the game's different characters who have been given diverse predetermined skills that either makes them geared more towards things like speed, performing tricks, or taking turns.

While having characters with different strengths and weaknesses isn't a new thing, in fact it's far from new, it has never really meant as much as it does in SSX. The reason for this is because there hasn't ever been a game that blended the elements mentioned above better than what we get here. If all you want to do is race down the course as fast as you can, you're not likely going to be able to come out on top. And, if you spend all of your time trying to do the biggest and most outrageous tricks possible at every instance, your chances of success won't be that good either. In order to come out on top in SSX, you'll need to come up with a perfect blend of performing tricks and going for all out speed -- and the your character type will help determine how much of each you should try and accomplish.

The reason that it works so well in SSX and hasn't really faired too well in any game before it is that the developers have come up with a creative boost system that is based around a meter that increases as you perform more tricks. What's more is that the boost system is progressive so that speed boosts performed with the meter completely full are much more powerful than those done when it's near empty. Because of something as simple as this, players are rewarded for performing lots of sensational tricks in succession to build up the meter as fast as possible. Keeping the boost meter full and using it as often as possible is beneficial as the game's computer controlled challengers put up an enormous fight and you'll be hard pressed to come out on top if you're not at the top of your game.

One thing that we haven't discussed yet is the game's control, which is when all's said and done as good as you're going to get. The feeling of control that you have over the onscreen character is by all means perfect. There's never really a time that you feel like you don't have total control over the character and you can basically do anything that you want to do with quite a bit of ease. If there's a complaint to be made about the control in SSX, it would probably have to be that its trick setup isn't at all like Tony Hawk, which will cause problems for people who have grown accustomed to that trick scheme. However, once you're able to get accustomed to the new setup, you'll likely realize that for this particular game, there's not a better way to handle tricks. The key to it all is learning that you must charge up your tricking by having your character wind up as he or she is approaching a jump. By doing this, you'll be able to perform twists and turns much faster and you'll in turn be able to perform more amazing tricks.

Another element of SSX that pretty much puts it in a level of excellence all by itself is the game's magnificently crafted tracks, which by themselves are better than what you'll find in any other snowboarding game on the planet. For example, let's take my personal favorite course -- the Tokyo Megaplex. This mountain is much more than just your typical snow packed course with jumps, trees, and other objects placed in different places to give you some diversity. This is a one-of-its-kind boarding venue that is more pinball machine that it is a ski run. It is filled with bumpers, flippers, switches, chutes and ramps that all can be used to help you perform wilder and more outrageous tricks or just get in your way and slow down your progress. It's a festival of lights, color and one of the most ingeniously designed levels that have ever been in a game.

Although, the raw creativity of these levels isn't really the only thing that makes them so good. The best aspect of each of the game's various levels is that each of them are littered with different ways to get to the end of the course that go well beyond just the raw beauty and visual excellence that each presents you. It is entirely possible to lose yourself in a specific track for countless hours, as there are numerous ways that you can get down each hill and how you take these secret routes and which kind of character you have will determine whether or not taking the apparent shortcut was really worthwhile.

All of this adds up to what is easily one of the most highly playable and replayable games in the history of videogames.

Graphics
Moving on with the general theme of this review, which is that SSX is pretty damn amazing, the game's graphics are some of the best that you'll see on PlayStation 2 or any other home gaming console. As far as snowboarding games are concerned, it's easily the best and its beauty goes well beyond just the genre that it happens to be a part of.

To begin, the 3D polygonal characters are brilliantly designed, animate extremely well and are very lifelike in their cartoony sort of way. The characters aren't plagued with any rough edges, as they are very smoothly modeled, and they don't have really any problems or glitches at all with them to complain about. The character animation is smooth, the transitions from movement to movement are fairly fluid and their designs are quite charming and have a lot of style.

However, as good as the characters are, they aren't as nearly impressive as the game's immensely beautiful 3D environments. Each of the various levels in the game are insanely large in scale and are built in a way that you can pretty much go anywhere in them. So, where do we start? Do we start with the wonderfully detailed textures that make the environments look almost real? Or do we go into how there are so many different graphical special effects that are littered throughout the games courses that there's never really a boring part of any stretch of the various tracks? Well, wherever we start, the end result is a game that's nearly perfect in terms of visual presentation.

The only problem with the game is that it's not always running at a constant 60 frames per second. There are a few times during the game, mostly during turns, where the framerate will noticeably slowdown a bit. Then again, it never ever affects the quality of the game and never interferes with the progress of the game. It's definitely a chink in the armor of a fantastic looking game, but only a very minor one. It's worth noting that there's actually less slowdown in the game's two-player split screen mode, as there's almost none to be seen when playing the game with two players.

Sound
SSX has pretty much revolutionized the way that sound is used in videogames. Not only is the music some of the best that you'll ever hear while playing a game, but it actually changes based on what's going on in the race. Yes, that's right, it changes to reflect how well you're doing in the game. The better you perform, the faster the pace of the music gets and the worse you perform, the slower it gets.

Performed by Beastie Boys' DJ MixMaster Mike and other talented artists, the music will have your adrenaline in overdrive and in order to really hear the music at its best; you'll have to be in first-place and performing the best tricks in your arsenal. Because if you fall behind or find yourself in the back of the pack, you won't get the full range of each of the tracks and the music will be a lot less intense and not nearly as exhilarating. And the best part is that it's all mixed perfectly on the fly so that you'll never notice the transitions and it will never interfere with the flow of the race.

The brilliant soundtrack is backed up with some crisp, high-quality sound effects and some hilarious character voices that add a great deal of humor and charm to the game. Some of the voiceovers might get a bit annoying after a while, but most are done really well and will never get old.

SSX has pretty much changed the way that audio can be used in a game -- lets hope that others can learn from this and use the same techniques in their games.

Closing Comments
When I finally got to play SSX for the very first time, it was a very dark and gloomy time for the PlayStation 2. The Japanese launch was met with plenty of criticisms and just about every new game released for the system was either completely worthless or just a graphically improved version of a basic game. Because of this, I was really prepared for a letdown with SSX. Well, I quickly found out that there was nothing at all wrong with SSX and that the PlayStation 2 wasn't the awful system that everyone was making it out to be.

Even though it's still basically a snowboarding game, it's so much more than that and SSX is not only the best game available for PS2 at its launch but it's easily one of the best games that will see a release in 2000 on ANY console. Aside from a few, unimportant, patches of slowdown, there's not really anything wrong with the game and its one of those titles that you could lose an entire day to without even knowing it. Believe me, I've lost a few weekends doing nothing but playing through the game. And the best part of it is that it's so enjoyable and rewarding that you don't really feel like you've wasted a weekend as much you as feel that you've spent it doing something that you should be doing.

SSX is much more than a snowboarding game. It's a brilliant gaming experience that should be in the library of everyone who is lucky enough to buy a PlayStation 2 this year. It's the best launch game and is easily the best snowboarding game ever released on any gaming console. In fact, it's so good that other quality snowboarding games that are being released on PlayStation 2 are being overlooked just because they can't compare to SSX. Nobody ever said that life was fair.

Rating	Description
out of 10	click here for ratings guide
8.5	Presentation Cool menus, lots of killer voice samples and plenty of hidden extras. Very well made videogame, especially for a system's launch title.
9.2	Graphics This game is beautiful. The lighting effects are amazing, the texture detail is extremely high and the game moves very fast. There are some bouts with slowdown, but it doesn't affect the gameplay.
10	Sound Audio has rarely been used as well as it is used in this game. The music and sound effects are all handled perfectly and the way that the sound changes with the game is unheard of.
9.5	Gameplay It might take some players a bit of time to learn the controls, but once they get a hold of it, there's no going back. There aren't many titles out there on any system that are as fun to play.
9.5	Lasting Appeal You won't want to stop playing this game until your body stops on you and you're forced to fall asleep or use the bathroom. There are so many secrets and ways to go down each course.
9.3 Outstanding	OVERALL (out of 10 / not an average)