SSX 3 Review

But how does it play? Well, it kind of plays like every other snowboarding games, but with a few things added just for SSX. You’ve got a bar on the right of your screen. The more you perform tricks, the more it gets filled. You can also fill this bar by knocking off other riders by punching them, and the more you puch them, the more they become mad at you and they’ll punch you back. When it’s filled, you can use it to perform turbos and go faster. But you can also continue to perform tricks and light the super uber letters on top of it. The more you light, the more the moves you’ll perform will be crazy. You’ll be able, at some point, to perform uber tricks, like uber grabs and uber rails. Those tricks are completely insane, stuff you’d never see in real life. A character can remove his feet from his board and just twist around it, then grab it back and land. It’s just unbeleivable! And you can also perform manuals and link those tricks to make insane combos or do handplants. One thing that needs to be mentionned though is the fact that since the cube controller has less buttons, there are moves not available only in the cube version, but it’s not that bad as there are already a ton to perform, so I don’t think people will notice, unless of course, if they’ve already played the other versions.

Now, one of the features that I really liked was the customization. You can customize your character by buying different clothes, different hairstyles, new boards, new shoes, new glasses, new accessories, you name it and they’ve got it! Then you can buy your character new uber moves and choose the ones you want him to perform. You can also buy him more attribute points so that he becomes the ultimate snowboarder. Your character has background information so you can know more about him, he has a record of all the events it’s won and what medals it has. You can also customize your soundtrack as you can buy the tracks you want and make your custom track list.

Now, on the graphics side, it is also amazing. The graphics look really good! The snow shines, there are fireworks everywhere, blizzards, avalanches, the riders are well detailed, you can see very far in front of you, the lighting is also beautiful, there are tree, houses, rails, waterfalls, the tracks are filled with stuff and it is just gorgeous. But what impressed me the most though is that the game does some amazing stuff, and it barely slows down! This is the difference between a rushed game and a polished one, and you can clearly see that EA has spent lots of time polishing this one up, as it is the best looking snowboarding game ever made in my opinion, just because it looks so good, runs smoothly, and is just so imaginative with huge tracks that are really different from what you see everywhere else. There are even parts of the tracks that fall apart or gets destroyed during some hardcore races later in the game!

On the sound department, it is also equally good and there’s a lot to be mentionned. First, the music is very good. It’s all licensed stuff and EA has a lot of good music that they’ve paid for and it really suits this game. There’s a lot of techno and rock music from well known bands, the kind of stuff that suits snowboarding. The sound effects are good and they really make you feel like you’re in the game, especially on a good surround sound system. All the characters have voices and they speak during the races, and that’s kind of cool, as they say more than “hey”! They’ll actually talk to each other during some races. There’s also DJ Atomica, who is kind of the commentator of the game, and tells stuff about what is happening on the mountain, the weather, the riders, and he makes you listen to the music. It really sound like a real radio channel, and it even has it’s own name: EA Radio Big!

What more to say? There is simply no reason why you shouldn’t get this game. It offers everything a gamer would want in a game, and then more. I’ve played with this game more than any other this generation, and I still have fun with it. Show EA some love on the cube and go get this game right now!