Jumping on the Bed!

I thought games were supposed to be fun. While, most of SSX is enjoyable so far (all 20min of it), the tutorial makes me feel retarded. The Ãœber Tricks specifically. Mancer and I have found that holding the Wii-mote out directly in front of you to draw the shapes (Clover-leaf, McDonald’s logo, Zorro, Heart, etc…) works immensely better than trying to draw just using your wrist. That being said, it’s still very difficult to pull of an Ãœber Trick with any regularity.

Mark, on the other hand, is very much into the game. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him having so much fun playing games before. Sure, Mark’s been this loud before, but generally because he was getting frustrated. I’ve never heard him ‘Wahoo!’ and ‘Waaaaaaah!! Yeah!’ before. Heh, quite amusing.

Perhaps once we get some more hours into it we’ll appreciate it better, but for the time being we’re finding the steep learning curve kind of off-putting. We also miss hearing the boarders’ voices as they careen down the slopes. The boarders just don’t have their personalities, and that is half the fun of the franchise. There’s nothing like edging out a race using Kaori, neck and neck with Maya 20 meters away from the finish line, dropping her with a snowball to the back of the head and coming in first. The announcer says some inane thing, the crowd cheers, and Kaori? She just waves her hands in the air and claps a couple of times… a mute. After all of the great quips we’re used to from the previous games, it’s a bit anti-climactic.

SSX: Blur is a commendable first attempt at the new system, but I hope EA puts more attention to the tricks and finer details like vocals and fireworks that make the SSX series what it is. An adrenaline-pumping over the top down-hill experience with tight controls, and the most important thing SSX has over EVERY other ski / snowboard sim… Personality.