SSX

This past week saw the latest release in the SSX series, the first in over six years, but more importantly, the first of this generation. With snowboarding games being in a woeful place since the SSX brand truly popularised them with ' Tricky' (the second installment in the series) in the early years of the new millennium, EA had already had their stage set by their competitors, with titles like  Shaun White's Snowboarding ,  Amped 3 and Stoked whetting people's appetites but never totally fulfilling the urge. All the SSX series had to do is deliver another solid title in an already impressive series, and it would reap the rewards.

The initial outset of SSX is extremely appealing, despite being shrouded by an average plot to motivate you. Team SSX are a group of the world's most elite extreme sports athletes and their aim is to 'dominate' the nine deadliest descents on the planet. However, one of the group has left and taken most of the sponsorship deals with him, and it's up to Team SSX to replace him and to continue impressing to keep their funds up.

So they might as well get the most eye-catching boards money can buy!

The working title of 'Deadly Descents' is the appealing aspect though, not the reverse underdog story, and each descent has its own danger, examples being ice, rocks and my personal favourite, avalanches. The main campaign of the game (entitled World Tour) is to go to each mountain, beat a team mate to assess if they're ready for Team SSX and then to have them train through race and trick challenges before pitting them against the full descent, prominent danger and all. Though this game mode is quite short and has a learning curve that shoots up way too fast for the final two challenges, it flows very nicely, and you go from one descent to another at a leisurely pace with the challenge of the next descent's danger and the introduction of a new character being a nice excuse to keep moving forward.

To combat the initially underwhelming length of the World Tour mode however, there is also the option to 'Explore', which allows you to choose from a huge 153 drop points while competing for medals, or even more appealingly, provided you're connected to Xbox Live or PSN, against your friends on RiderNet, a system that posts your friends' high scores directly to your game screen. RiderNet is much like the Need for Speed series' AutoLog, whereby you can send challenges, post your best scores instantly and basically just show off. When attempting to rival your friends challenges, their ghost is also projected on the course and this is, unfortunately, as close as SSX gets to genuine multiplayer. It works well with SSX and for the more competitive player can provide hours of added gameplay.

All this considered, the game is well presented, and the option to personalise your music with what's on your Xbox 360/Playstation 3 or choose from the list of commercial dub-step/drum 'n' bass/dance music they have on offer. Sound effects are all spot-on and the character's voices alongside their assistants in the helicopters, that give you valuable insight into the course as it unfolds, are performed very well and come out crisp and clear.

This could either score a lot of points or end very badly...

One disappointment is the lack of any character creation. Understandable, as the game is about Team SSX, but you have to believe they could have turned the main protagonist, Zoe, into you, the gamer at home. It's a minor gripe however, that is actually compensated by allowing you to customise the characters as you play, unlocking more credits and equipment as you go. And with each descent requiring a different piece of equipment to survive it, there's plenty for you to purchase.

But if anything looks better than the equipment you can collect it's the game itself. The landscapes are breathtaking, the graphics of the snow are excellent whether it's falling in the sky, being carved by your snowboard, or crumbling down towards you in an all-encompassing avalanche, the effects are as good as you could ever hope for. The characters are maturely animated and keep the charm of the ludicrous, reality-defying, spectacular action without looking childish. The action moves at an incredibly smooth pace with the frame-rate never dropping and the camera behaving itself at all times.

At first, I have to confess that I struggled with SSX as I played it. The action moves fast and the controls are quite loose, and for those that haven't played previous installments in the series, it will take some time to get used to it. However it quickly becomes apparent that the game would suffer, were the controls any tighter and as you start to adapt to them (thankfully quicker than you would expect), you can feel yourself using the entire width and length of each course to aid you in gaining a high score, which is important to win in trick challenges, and also important for races as you earn boost upon completion of a trick or grind.

Much like other EA Sports games, SSX has finally evolved to the dual analogue control system and tricks can either be performed with the simple flick or rotation of the right analogue stick while in mid-air. Grinds are also performed with general ease, your boarder automatically beginning a grind should you come in contact with a bright red rail, or you can hold the left trigger to attempt a grind on a piece of the landscape. The only problem is that there is a loose 'auto lock-on' system, and though it has only happened once so far, my boarder actually fell off the side of the cliff after the game forced me to move gradually towards a grind rail.

However, another trick that SSX has learned from other games is the 'rewind' system. Originally introduced by Race Driver: Grid to wide critical acclaim, it's a system that does away with the archaic concept of the screen fading to black before replacing your intact car (or in this case, boarder) back on the course at the cost of a few seconds, and instead allows you to rewind what happened. Most games limit this system to an amount of uses, and whereas SSX also does for the survival descents, during the race and trick challenges, you can use them as much as you like, though your rivals will continue moving as you do and you face a penalty of points. It works well, and though you never forget it's there, it effectively discourages you from using it unnecessarily.

Snowy, damp socks guaranteed.

SSX is a complete package with smooth gameplay that looks great all the time and from every angle. EA have truly revived the genre in style, and brought back a much-loved series successfully. Whereas SSX suffers for having limited online and local multiplayer features and has room for improvement in terms of customising and personalising the player's experience, these downfalls are undermined largely by how much it shines in just about every other department. With some minor tweaks, a follow-up would be nearly impossible to criticise.

8 out of 10.