After five years, SSX has finally returned to take gamers everywhere back to the slopes. Yet for anyone unfamiliar with EA’s release, we present you 12 years of history in one article.
SSX, or ‘Snowboarding Supercross’ as it probably doesn’t want to be known, has come a long way since its 2000 debut at the height of the extreme sports’ domination over the video games industry.
At the turn of the century the world wasn’t just obsessed with Will Smith’s underrated ‘Will2K’ tune; a variety of new sports titles had taken over the world of video games. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater had began what would become a sales juggernaut for years to come, Mat Hoffman’s Pro BMX would arrive a year later and even Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfing made it to shelves in 2003.
Snowboarding, however, was already a known quantity, owed originally to the success of Sony’s Cool Boarders franchise which began in 1996 and the decidedly non-cutesy Nintendo equivalent, 1080° Snowboarding. Though anyone looking for kid-friendly boarding fun were already well catered for with the N64 ‘Snowboard Kids’ franchise too.
Yet upon the arrival of SSX, it was clear that a new rival was here to dominate the genre and so it would come to pass. Originally a PS2 launch title, SSX differed from its counterparts with then-next generation graphics, a colourful art style and a clever balancing of tricks and racing. It wasn’t simply about reaching the bottom of mountain in first position – you had to do it in style.
Sadly, despite being a critical smash (achieving a mind-boggling critical aggregate of 93% on Metacritic), the original SSX underperformed at retail, owed to a competitive market and the rather confusingly-titled Cool Boarders 2011, which was released in the same month, October 2000.
Unsurprisingly, however, SSX was to return. After all, it was the spearhead title of a now-defunct EA Sports BIG brand, which was originally created to launch a series of alternative sports titles. With critical adulation and the pressure of carrying a fledgling publisher brand on its back, the series came back just a year later as SSX Tricky.
With afro and dreadlocked cover stars, not to mention a title to play up the games’ reliance on tricks, the sequel was to signify the fun-filled direction SSX was heading towards and audiences lapped it up. The addition of a ‘Tricky’ meter for ratcheting up the showboating was a masterstroke, although the less said about the reliance on the classic Run DMC track of the same name the better…
SSX 3 was the game which fully signified just how far the series had come, featuring a new graphical engine, a perfectly-pitched ambient soundtrack and up to 8 player multiplayer options. Admit it, even that description makes you want to boot it up once again, right?
In many ways SSX 3 remains the high watermark of the series, both in terms of sales and critical adulation, offering a game which – mostly due to the fact that it takes place one mountain of tracks – felt the most personal, the most satisfying and years later, the most memorable.
With the removal of online multiplayer and a sometimes-overwhelming emphasis on character creation, SSX On Tour never quite made the same impact as its predecessor. On the other hand, the GameCube version allowed you to snowboard as Super Mario, so we can’t be too harsh.
Of course Mario can snowboard – what’s your point?
Prior to this month, our most recent venture to the slopes was for the Wii launch title SSX Blur, which only appeared on Nintendo’s waggle-centric box of joy. As with nearly every early Wii title, the game crowbarred remote-waving gameplay into proceedings as possible. It was a sadly gimmick-laden final entry for a once-coveted franchise.
But wait… there’s more! Emerged from the snowy depths this weekend comes the simply-titled SSX, a startling return to form which offers at least double the content provided from the entirety of the franchises’ previous installments.
We’ve nine – yeah, seriously… nine – mountain ranges, around 150 drops, wingsuits, ‘Deadly Descents’ survival missions and possibly the finest sports video game soundtrack we’ve heard, SSX’s return should have more than enough to catch the eye of casual gamers who had their head turned by SSX 3. Have a read of the JOE review here before we start salivating everywhere…
Where SSX goes from here is uncertain but if we were betting men, we’d imagine that iOS (most likely iPad-centric) release is in the offing, while the bulk of groundwork behind the first title in five years suggests that a sequel is inevitable.
Whether SSX can carry the entire extreme sports genre as it once did the EA Sports BIG brand remains to be seen but it’s the finest comeback we can recall since John Travolta did that lazy dance in Pulp Fiction. High praise, we’re sure you’ll agree.
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