Sports Games

After a first test dedicated to "classic" and Trick Race mode and a second meeting devoted to multiplayer, with the impact of our third revival of SSX, held in London last EA Showcase that allowed us to return to face the single player game. This time, however, we enjoyed the go-ahead on all three modes, then the emotions trying Survive format.

SSX has three different possible approaches to the mountains, allowing you to deal as best we believe the huge game environments. Of approaching the Himalayas, Siberia, Patagonia and the company then we will have the opportunity to perform in wild strokes in time with other players (in which however the tricks are used to accumulate the basic turbo), challenges in the last trick, focused exclusively on 'performing crazy stunts, and, finally, in survival mode, where the development team refers to as having initially appeared to be heading to the game: Deadly Descent. In this mode, the only thing that matters is to go as far forward as possible without being dried. There are no timers or meters of the tricks; there is only a count of distance traveled, not when we get down to zero: it is instead shown at the top by helicopter and it goes from there continuing until his death. And there are a limited number of lives left, in the form of "rewind" which set aside the Skull Bash tirade against the wrong side of the mountain.

All this takes place through four different types of possible situations. The avalanche, which we tried at E3 2011, the player puts down a "fragile", where the movement of our table goes to the same result in sudden and dangerous landslides. Gravity of the situation, we have tried in London on the peaks of Patagonia, where one is faced with dizzying leaps of crevasses and precipices matched, using a comfortable dress "winged" by which planar. Cold, who placed in the middle of Antarctica and forced to survive thermal excursion from forty degrees in a few seconds you feel moving the shade from the sun. And finally, Darkness, in which he shoots for the tunnels that run through the inside of a volcano frozen Africa: Mount Kilimanjaro.

Pad in hand, SSX game proves fun and immediate. The control system aims with violence on the use of analog sticks (a legacy perhaps of participation in the work of some members of the team responsible for Skate?), deputy to the execution of various stunts right stick. The buttons, back and front, are used instead to jump, turn on the grind, unleash the turbo and in general for "moves" special situations. For example, the use of the glide in the tracks that require survival. Without the tare control system slightly different from that of previous episodes, it works wonderfully well, even in complex situations, as may be the need to find yourself speeding on snow and jump into the void, only to realize suddenly distances too large and having planar - in inverted controls, flight simulator-style - to the next ridge.

All this is part of a high quality graphical engine owner, which offers extensive and solid scenarios and, despite some uncertainty in the frame-rate We tried to build, unfolds smoothly and convincingly despite the amount of material moved. In short, the graphics quality is, strong stylistic choices also colorful and dazzling as usual, inevitable to emerge white snow. Add to this a strong and immediate control, two traditional game modes, the thrilling multiplayer survival and very promising, well, the impression is that - after five years of absence - SSX is ready to return to dominating snows virtual home.