SSX On Tour

THE BAD:

SUMMARY:
The SSX franchise has been the best snowboarding franchise for a long time. Competitors have tried to overthrow Electronic Arts with games such as Amped but SSX always seem to be the king of the slopes. Well now after two years of waiting the fourth development of the popular SSX series is here, and the riders are going On Tour!

So what have EA added to the game this time round? Well the first noticeable difference is the fact that you know longer control one of the already created riders in World Tour mode, infact you have to create your own rider to ride the slopes on. Choose between male and female and between skis or board, yeah that's right, you can now choose to ride of skis or a snowboard. So what's the difference between being a skier or a snowboarder? Well not much really, the Monster Tricks are different (more about that later) and the reflexes and actions of a skier is a bit slower but apart from that they are quite similar.

Main mode of the game is the World Tour, and this is not what you've become used to expect from World Ciruit in previous installments of the series. Gold medals have been taken out and the World Rankings has been added. What this basically means is that you are no longer competing against fellow friends/enemies to get Gold, instead your aim is to complete shreds and win races to give you hype and bump your way up the rankings leaderboard. This leads into what goes on in the World Tour and how you get hype points. There's 3 main ways of progressing and improving your rank, there is racing, completing shreds and doing trick contests. Racing is like it has always been, get to the end of the track before time runs out and infront of as many other riders as possible. Doing trick contests is also the same, score a certain amount of points or more in a slope to progress. However what's new to On Tour is the shreds. These shreds range from all different types of objectives and missions including escaping from the wraith of the Snow Patrol to grinding 2,000 meters of rail in 8 minutes.

How does the gameplay feel with all these new additions in the game? Well it's just like it's always been, extremely addictive. The adrenaline still pumps when there's seconds left to reach the finish line and you still get all tense when you have a 500,000 point combo and your close to falling. However I can't help but feel there has been no enthusiasm been put into the development of this game. Sure at times there is, but when your not doing Monster Tricks over huge jumps there is just dull plain boring slopes to ride down. Them loss of commentary could be a reason for this, SSX 3 has a commentator which would shout remarks such as "Speeeeeed boost" to add to the tension as your rider went into a 1440 spin off a jump. Something else which is a let down for On Tour is the unlockables and rewards for progressing in the game. Back in SSX 3 I found myself searching for money whilst riding down the slopes in freeride, this was because I needed more money to either improve my riders stats or to unlock a new board/clothes. On Tour goes too easy on you, money is extremely easy to obtain and I never found myself needing to go into freeride and search the slopes for money. If this wasn't bad enough the things that can actually be unlocked is dismal in On Tour. Your choice of clothing seems to me smaller than the variety given in SSX 3, stat points can no longer be bought as they are now decided upon how good your board/skis are and attributes which can be bought to enhance certain aspects of your riders performance do minimum effect.

Getting scores which pass the 7 digits is what we all aim for when we play a SSX game right? Well now with the all new and improved Monster tricks this is made much more easier. Monster Tricks did feature back in SSX 3 but they were just known as hidden tricks that score you gigantic points, it was Uber Tricks back then that most people used in attempt to get a killer score. Land some grabs and spins without falling and your boost meter at the bottom of the screen should turn yellow, this activates the ability to use Monster Tricks. Next jump off a slope and simply move the right analogue stick in any direction and your rider will take the board/skis of their foot and do some fancy trick in the air earning you points. Once you have down this you should then rotate the right analogue stick around in a semi circle, this will trigger your rider to take their other foot off the board/ski and do a much more entertaining Monster Trick earning you much bigger points. As well as Monster Tricks there are also special tricks which can be pulled off on rails and ledges. Tap a button such as L or Y and your rider will do crazy tricks in a grind which include riding on your bum, doing a handstand and more!

Does Multiplayer do the game any favours? Well yeah it does. SSX On Tour doesn't feature on Xbox Live which is a shame as I can imagine it being a good success, although it does enable up to 4 people to face eachother in every type of shred on every type of slope on the game. The Multiplayer should really be used when you have a few friends round and have nothing else much better to do, with no type of tournament or rankings there isn't much competition so you will have to make do with entertaining shreds and delightful courses. Visually the game is the same, although a cartoonish approach has been added for the games menus and pause screen. Also the soundtrack on the game lives up to the high expectations created by the previous games, Billy Talent and Fall Out Boy will keep you entertained for a long amount of time.

Verdict

EA have created and maintained a great franchise for over 5 years now but with On Tour you can see that the game has taken a step backwards and therefore giving Amped 3 a chance to shine on the Xbox 360. Sure the game is good fun but if you've never played a SSX game before then go and pick up SSX 3, it's quite a lot better than On Tour.

8/10