SSX Blur Review

Whether you love EA or hate EA, their strong support of Nintendo’s latest console can only mean good things for Wii owners in years to come. Worn out and overused franchises from last generation now have the potential to be revitalized and made “new” again. Until four years and five SSX games later… Knowing a sequel can’t be far off lessens the impact of SSX Blur, but this is still a fun game and a great starting point for the franchise on Wii.

One thing you should understand, though, is that SSX Blur is not your typical SSX. The graphics, style, and music have gone in a different direction, and, of course, the controls are completely redone. But fans of SSX will recognize a few courses from previous games, like SSX 3’s Happiness, and what the series has always been about–insane tricks and dangerous mountains–is still intact.

The game starts off with you picking from one of eleven characters and building up their skills by competing in individual events, challenges, and tournaments. Generally, there are three types of events: race, slalom, and slopestyle (trick attack). Winning an event doesn’t award you money, however, as has been the SSX tradition. Instead, you are given points that go towards opening up new tournaments. And tournaments aid in opening up more mountain peaks and other goodies. But without the money in place, there isn’t a resolute system for increasing stats. After each event, you just have to cross your fingers and hope this time you did something to get a stat boost. The game is also very quiet about what it takes to unlock new costumes for your characters (costumes replacing the ability to customize each article of clothing individually).

Despite that SSX Blur feels a little unorganized at times, the game is still very fun and challenging due to the Wii remote and nunchuk. The nunchuk is used primarily for movement, and if you weren’t planning to do any tricks, you could ride the whole mountain with just this. The sensitivity and responsiveness of the nunchuk makes carving (by tilting side to side) a natural process and is easy to get into. Similarly, grabs are performed by tilting the nunchuk while airborne. When you add in the remote, however, things start to get complicated. To do a flip, you flick the remote in the desired direction. But it’s a bit sporadic, often going for a front flip instead of a spin or spinning when you didn’t want to do anything. It definitely takes some getting used to, and gamers who had mastered the original SSX controls will have a very difficult time converting over.

But once you do get the hang of the controls, you’ll find pulling off tricks to be more rewarding than ever. This is especially so when you factor in uber tricks. These special tricks require specific gestures with the remote (and sometimes the nunchuk). For instance, you may have to swish the remote to make an invisible Z or draw the remote and nunchuk together to form a heart. Unfortunately, these shapes don’t always register, or they register as the wrong shape. You’ve got to draw a rather large, well-defined Z to actually get the Z, and that’s some flailing which could easily embarrass you in the wrong company. While there are 12 uber tricks in total, only a handful are actually manageable, and you may find yourself only being able to do about half of them.