I have always been a huge fan of SSX and have been looking forward to this version since it was announced,Graphically this looks great and runs very smooth,
i will say character personalization is pretty poor but thats ok because you never get to see what others look like online...however styling your own racer would have been far better than predefined outfits for each racer.I would much rather create a character and build them from start to finish but SSX has a story and characters,not just any story a really bad and dull story.Apparently we have to own every mountain before Griff.WOW edge of the seat stuff there...Shame Griff is awful and i beat him first time on every challenge.
Come on EA surely you have been creating games long enough to get rid of weak background stories and concentrate on gaming.
The online features im quite happy with,i actually prefer live mountains with whoevers playing it and a ghost of record holders.
I also like the fact you can play your own music.
The tracks range from great to just stupid,yes you can get down them all but snowboarding is meant to be fun and a lot of the tracks are made to be so dangerous that they are not fun to play,i love a challenge in gaming so its not that they are hard... its that they are frustrating and when you do go off the edge there is no respawn(that would have been ok).Noooooo they have a rewind button that i am forever pressing by accident when i want to grind tree trunks ect....but this feature of rewind is awful because as you fly off of a verge you can't see where your going to land so you might have a huge combo going that you can never land because there is no powder below you,just a drop in to a white abyss,ah but you realize that your going to fall in to an abyss after 4 or 5 seconds so you click rewind....well in races the time keeps ticking so you wind back to a surface which can take 4 or 5 seconds then let go to get back in play only to find you let go to early and still cant control the trajectory,BAMMMM! back in same abyss so you have to rewind again.Who thought this was fun?
My last complaint is with the controls,there are 3 different control methods,both sticks,1 stick and buttons and classic from old ssx games,problem is they have added so many pointless and not fun other things to deal with that you are pressing to many buttons,wingsuit,oxygen all these different things add little to the game but add another button.also the whole control system just feels like they have to many buttons mapped and really a lack of a decent combo system.
When the game is good its great but for me they designed the game by saying oh we have a button we havent used we need a new feature,games like this should be simple and fun but complex to master the combo system,I do like the game but will it last me months like previous SSX games? no,infact 5 days after buying it i am hardly playing it.
Overall i will say as EA do to often,
pointless back story,
long restart times if you wish to restart a run,
some great tracks,
some awful tracks,
to much over design where almost every track needs a new thing to do like wing suit or oxygen.
If i wanted to play pilot wings id buy it.
Game has everything to be fantastic but slightly ruined by to many bad ideas trying to fill out something that in its purest form is at its most fun.
Don't get me wrong its a good game but it has been slightly ruined by to many ideas that don't add to the game.
EA keep to snowboarding and keep the contols light and the combos TRICKY.