EA Canada reinvent SSX with a return to monumental alpine slopes and a varied event system. The downhill remains exhilarating, the electronic soundtrack pulses, and global online mode turns every run into a worldwide challenge whose suspense can last for days.
Your verdict
Category
Sports1 player12+
Description
Snow sports game by EA Canada and EA Sports, February 2012. Iconic SSX riders compete and descend real satellite-reconstructed mountain slopes in tricks and speed competitions. Aerial trick chain mechanics with Tricky combo, real mountain ridge lines like Everest and deadly Killer Descents. Reboot of the classic SSX combining spectacle and geographical realism.
SSX review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
1/5
Story
★★★★★
"Anecdotal"
The mountains are not invented: the slopes are generated from real topographic surveys, the Himalayas, the Alps, Antarctica, then dressed in fictional light, aurorae, moonlit nights, sandstorms. This marriage of measured geography and impossible colors produces descents in which the range's actual scale makes every jump vertiginous.
The track recomposes itself with the run: each piece is cut into layers the audio engine adds or removes according to speed, successful tricks and the proximity of a fall, so two passes down the same slope never produce the same mix. The music stops accompanying and becomes a real-time report on the performance.
A revival of the extreme snowboarding series from EA, SSX reconnects with the supercharged descents, the outsized tricks and the sense of speed that made the licence's legend, on mountains from around the world recreated as dizzying playgrounds. The feel of the glide, the rewarding trick system and the asynchronous online challenges win over arcade sports fans. The sometimes temperamental camera and an uneven difficulty temper the whole. An excellent snowboarding game for fans of spectacular arcade gliding and acrobatic scoring.
