SSX (Playstation 2)

Other products by EA Canada

Product Features

• Contact Racing Survival mode racing, slam opponents out of the race
• Insane Tricks and Big Air More tricks, more payoff! Pump up your Adrenaline Bar for a potential boost with every successful trick.
• Career-Based Racing Start your career as lowly Newbie and evolve into the Ultimate Master.
• Grounded in Real Physics Incredible control, pumped up for arcade entertainment.
• Mind Blowing Worlds Distinctly different track environments, including a pinball-like Megaplex, an iceberg and an untracked powder field.

Product Details

• ASIN: B00004U5VS
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (251 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #13,048 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

With its mesmerizing graphics, fantastic controls, and high replayability, SSX: Snowboard Supercross is good enough to be considered among the finest PlayStation2 launch titles by any fan of video gaming. It's one of those genre-defining and system-justifying games that'll please even folks who normally dislike snowboarding games. It's just that good!

After selecting from one of the four initially available racers, you must race against a full field of opponents down long, twisting, and sometimes gravity- and physics-defying courses. What makes SSX a standout from similar games is Electronic Arts' amazing attention to detail. The tracks show much variety in their outrageous twists, bumps, jumps, and ramps. However, to utilize them best, you must perform potentially backbreaking, neck-snapping tricks. Okay, you actually won't suffer any physical damage, but the cartoony falls do look rather painful.

The tricks are done by successfully performing complex button-mashing and joystick-twisting combs. The more and better the tricks you perform, the higher a speed boost you'll get to help you finish a track quickly. In order to progress through all of the rounds in World Circuit mode (the meat of the game), you must place at least third in each race. Successful completion of races also can unlock new characters and snowboards--each with dramatic performance differences. It might look somewhat similar to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater or other snow games, but SSX is a totally different take.

SSX's illusion of speed is simply fantastic. Should you manage to take your eyes off your well-animated racer to check out the scenery, you'll see bright lighting effects, cheering crowds, lots of snow spray, and a wide variety of background visuals that hint at the PS2's graphics prowess. It's also that same sense of speed that delivers a great feeling of accomplishment when your board lands safely on the snow pack after you complete a complex trick that was performed absurdly high in the air.

Almost all of SSX's animations are as smooth as glass. There's minor slowdown when you turn through some of the larger hills, but this is barely noticeable and rarely interferes with gameplay. The bumping soundtrack changes on the fly, and is based on your performance. The better your tricks and speed, the wilder and more up-tempo the music gets. All of the enormous courses--some of which can take close to 10 minutes to finish--have many shortcuts and alternate routes to cut into your finishing time.

One gripe with the game is that your character, after painfully crashing into cold hard snow, sometimes start moving will in the exact opposite direction that you were racing originally. This eats up time and is irritating, but definitely not a huge problem. --Mark Brooks

Pros:

• Excellent graphics provide an ultrarealistic illusion of speed
• Immediately playable, yet challenging for snowboard vets
• Long courses with many paths to the finish line

Cons:

• Occasional slowdown

Product Description

Get ready for the ride of your life! Explode out of the start gate and launch into the race of your life. Push the boundaries of real physics to dominate the SSX World Circuit

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 1 of PS2's best releases this year., October 1, 2000

By	Thomas Rose (Miami, FL USA) - See all my reviews

It doesn't matter how many videos you download or how many screenshots you see you'll never know how much fun this is untill you play it. Starting off is the complex trick system. Unlike alot of snowboarding games it's easy for a beginer to pull off a basic trick, but it'll take months to master it. Next it has severall styles of riders who each have some strong and week points, and unlike alot of games there is a huge difference between them. The best part off the game is the levels. How many of you have bought a snowboarding game and found each level is going down a snow covered mountain with no difference but how difficult it is. My favorite level is a pinball machine. It has bumbers, switches, secret areas, and you get three tries (just like a pinnball machine. There is also one whhere you go down the streets of a city and if you want you can go on top of the building or even go through them. Another one of my favorites was your on an iceburg and as it moves towrds honolulu it melts finally landing you in beutiful hawai. All I can say is try to work this game in the ones you buy at launch. I found it was much more fun then TTT or Ridge Racer. The only game I liked more was Kessen and Maden 2001 (I'm a huge football fan.)

53 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Game at the PS2 Launch, October 31, 2000

By	NEO-CS- "Cyber Soldier" (www.cybersoldiers.us) - See all my reviews

If you have not thought about picking up a snowboarding game for any of your game systems, EA Sports has certainly come up with an easy way to change your mind!! For those of you thinking this is just another Cool Boarders game....guess again!! SSX is simply the best Playstation 2 game at Launch time. I have not ever played a game as fun as SSX. The graphics are bright and vivid with no jagged lines. This game must run at a frame rate of 60 frames per second, as SSX runs very fast, with no pop up graphics and no slowdown.

You have a plethora of characters to choose from, each of which have different outfits and snowboards which you can select. There are so many tricks that can be performed that you will find yourself trying new stuff for a very longtime. This adds greatly to the replay value. The courses are absolutely crazy, with muliple paths (some secret paths) , and blazing speed. What could be better than sliding down an icy mountain and being able to punch the competition out of the way?!!

In conclusion, SSX wins with great graphics, sound and gameplay.

This is the game that really WOWED me at PS2 Launch time.

Highly Recommended!!

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An All-Time Classic, You'll be playing this a long time..., October 31, 2000

By	Chris Peters (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

SSX reminds me of Goldeneye for the N64. Yeah, the 2 games are totally different, but the fun is not. SSX, like Goldeneye, is the type of game you can play forever. People will be playing this game right until the Playstation 3 comes out. It's easy to learn, but has amazing depth to it. It's fun and addictive. The graphics are amazing and the music is phat. From now on, if you hear about another snowboard game you'll wonder, "Is it as good as SSX?"

This is a racing game, with a few (hundred) tricks thrown in for good measure. Wanna concentrate on speed? You can win. Wanna pull of tricks? You can still win. Both styles are wonderfully matched. The tracks are amazing, with huge curved turns and shortcuts that twist and dive in all directions. There are so many things to do on these tracks, you'll be showing your friends something new every weekend for months. You don't just race down mountains, but through city streets and parks, underneath highways, inside sewers, over a desert moutain with artifical snow, through half-pipes and giant loops, inside sewers and over the tops of buses, down a frozen river, through a huge, bizarre Japanese amusement park with a giant fan that pushes you back to the top of the run. You even race down a glacier which has been towed to Hawaii - there are cruise ships watching from the side lines, and the snow melts so fast the water rushes around your feet as you shoot through a run-off ditch. There are all sorts of rails to ride, half-pipes, insane jumps, snowmachines, and even fireworks that you'll never be bored. Really. This game is that good.

The multiplayer mode is perfect - not only can you beat your buddies in a race, but you can slam it in their face by performing a 1080 backside spin or a 50/50 rail slide while they watch helplessly from 200 feet behind you. The Tokyo amusement park track has buttons which cause all sorts of obstacles to jump out at your opponents (including a huge working pinball machine).

Extras? Talk about extras! You can unlock characters, tracks, outfits, and boards, plus pump up your characters' statistic RPG-style by winning races. Increasing your stats makes a noticeable difference in the game, and some areas of the tracks are reachable until you build up your characters. There is a 50-trick book for each and every character in the game, giving you a challenge to pull of each and every one of them. Given that some of the bigger characters aren't the greatest trick-sters, doing everything in this game will take you quite a long time.

Finally, if all that wasn't enough, the music is simply the best ever in a video game. Created by Mix Master Mike (of Beastie Boys fame) the music actually mixes while you play, and responds to your performance. Lead the pack and the bass is pumping, pull of a sweet trick and the music screams. Because it is basically dance-techno beat music, it puts you into a groove and helps your game. One of the few soundtracks I never turn off.

SSX is reason enough to buy a PS2. Get it.