SSX (2012) Preview

You won’t get board of this one.

I love the winter. It’s warm, there’s no rain, the sun shines bright, and I can go outside and play in the park. Sorry, I’m thinking of California winter. “Regular” winter is great too—ugly sweaters, plenty of hot food, cuddle time *wink*, and of course, snow! Now when some people think of snow, that means it’s time to break out some shovels and snowshoes and get to work. But when I think of snow, I think snowboarding and SSX!

When the original SSX was released, it always wanted to stand out from its competitors. At the time, it had its own look but still didn’t quite stand out from other snowboarding titles such as Cool Boarders. Through years of tweaking and modifying, EA continued to put together a fresh franchise everyone could enjoy. To this day SSX is still growing and adapting, and now they're undoubtedly at the top of their game.



And oh, how this game has slid down a slope of platforms—tail-grinding the PlayStation 2, nose-grabbing the GameCube, misty-flipping with Gizmondo, eggplanting off the Xbox, a quick 360 spin with the Wii, and now a perfect landing on the PlayStation 3. No matter the system, SSX has remained true to its form: Go Big or Go Home. And this year’s edition is so big, it’ll make your head do a 360 of its own.

Maps are designed based on real-life locations, using global geographic data to perfect the courses. Want to hit the tallest peak in the world? No problem. Circle around to the Himalayas and shred it up. But don’t forget your oxygen tank, one of the many gear packs you can equip in order to “survive” the mountains. A spare number of different runs require different survival packs like this; for mountains that have a darkness warning, you'll need to wear a nifty headlight. But even with your equipment, you must be careful on how you use it, for it has battery life and you don't want to shatter your body by bumping into all the obstacles.

Those who have played past SSX titles will jump right back into hitting all of their favorite moves. New users should definitely look to take the training course; with practice, like a lot of things, it may not be anywhere near perfect, but you’ll get it eventually (maybe). Or you can do what I did and just play every course with your flying-squirrel-like “wingsuit”. Who cares about points when you can soar down the mountain at blistering speeds like Batman on a snowboard? And guess what—if you crash or mess up you can rewind time for the cost of a few points! Yup, you guessed it, just like The Prince of Persia. So you got both Sands of Time and Batman in the snow—what more could you want?



One of the coolest features is you can post a run online to compare with your friend’s run. Instead of just posting scores though, your Slimer-like ghost will actually race against your buddy the exact way you took to the course, and if you're playing in Global Events, you can compete against the entire world for the best run as you attempt to get the best racing line or that green snowflake to multiply your score with uber tricks.

Thus far, it seems like there will be, trust me when I say this, plenty of things to do is this 2012 edition of SSX. So don’t be shy on trying this one out when it releases late February.