Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible, but not without flaws, October 23, 2003
Brand new from EA is the latest in the successful SSX snowboarding saga, SSX 3. Whether this is your first SSX game or you're a faithful follower of the previous two, this game will flat-out amaze you. No other snowboarding game so perfectly combines the reality of the feel, touch and appearance of gliding through the snow with the jaw-dropping physics defying stunts you'll be able to easily execute from the moment you pick up a controller.Several new additions are found in SSX3, most notably the Conquer the Mountain mode of play. In this mode you select a snowboarder and build him or her up - like in the previous versions of the game - except this time you're doing it for cash in order to purchase various accessories and abilities. Rather than take you all over the world to snowboard, SSX3 keeps you in one location - a gigantic mountain with 3 separate peaks. Each individual peak is bigger than entire contents of the SSX Tricky (wow). You begin on peak one and as you win medals in different venues, you eventually unlock peak two, and so on. The events you'll compete in on each peak are the old familiar ones - racing and freestyle - as well as some very cool new ones: Freeride, where you collect icons for money and perform various missions; Big Air which is usually a very short run where you try to land huge scores in only a few jumps; Rival Challenges where you have a one-on-one duel with your nemesis down the mountain, trying to beat their score or best time; the Superpipe, an event where you ride the length of a pipe garnering unbelievable air; Slopestyle, which has you basically in a gigantic downhill snowboard park. It's up to you to find your own route down and score the most points; and the enormous Peak Events. This is worthy of its own section. There are 3 Peak Events, one for each peak. After you have medaled in all of the freestyle or race venues for a given peak, you'll then compete in the Peak Event where you'll race from the top of that peak to the bottom, usually encompassing 3 - 4 of the venues from that peak. Peak one's race is over ten minutes. Peak two includes not only it's own trails but also peak one's trails. This race is over twenty minutes. Lastly, Peak three's event takes you down all three peaks for over a half hour. Back also are the Uber-tricks, but there's a new slew of super-Uber-tricks, as well as rail Uber-tricks and board presses, which allow you to spin on the tip of your board while either on the ground or on a rail. The addition of the rail tricks are great, but I'm not thrilled with the Uber-tricks. Many of them are simply the same exact ones that the characters performed in SSX Tricky. Most of the old characters make an appearance here as well as a few new ones, the most popular sure to be the 12-year-old prodigy Griff and the cute 18-year-old Allegra. Each character has a designated enemy with whom they'll square off in the various one-on-one Rival competitions throughout the game. The graphics are far better than its predecessor, SSX Tricky, which was outstanding in its own right. The snow is amazing. As you change from powder to hardpack to ice, you can not only hear and feel the difference of the board on the surface but you can also tell by the way the light glistens of it. This game provides seemingly endless game play, allowing you to travel literally hundreds of unique routes down each of the dozens of trails with ten different riders, each with their own special characteristics. The music is one-of-a-kind. With everyone from the Black Eyed Peas to Fat Boy Slim, you'll never get bored of hearing the same lame soundtrack over and over again. SSX3 also employs a unique mixing system - The music is mixed in real time as you play, meaning it changes depending upon how you're performing. If you are cruising along with tons of momentum expect the music to be busy, loud and aggressive. If you catch air, often the drums will drop out while you soar, which will usually lead to a huge musical entrance perfectly timed with your landing. However, a few negatives. Everything can't be perfect. The game is touted as allowing you "go anywhere" and true, there is a huge realm in which you can travel, the biggest I've ever seen in a game. But every once in a while if you stray off the beaten path only a little - and I mean only a few feet (in the game scale obviously) - you will be out of bounds and reset to the path again. They would've done better to expand these narrow areas of play, since it brings down what is otherwise a huge game universe. As previously mentioned, the Uber-tricks are basically the same as in other versions of the game, except for the new characters. I was really hoping for more amazing stunts. Additionally, I would've liked more interaction with the "plot" section of the game. There could be more inter-character drama, more clothes to buy, etc. Lastly, it can be a little complicated to know what you're supposed to do. It's not easy to figure out how to get into the lodge, buy attributes, compete in different events, etc. If you're wondering, you need to go to the transport, then pick which course you want to go to. Once there you'll find yourself snowboarding and you'll see signs for the different events, simply follow the sign to the event you want to do. And to get to the lodge, you need to go to the transport, select which peak you want (each has it's own lodge), then select the "station" option. Once there you'll be snowboarding along and you'll see the signs for the lodge. Just glide in and enter. Even with the flaws, I couldn't give the game less than five stars. It might be the deepest game you'll own.
|
|
|
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good game, but not much has changed, October 27, 2003
I liked this game, but I played SSX tricky forever and this game didn't quite have enough new stuff to keep me permanantly interested. There's just not as much new stuff as I would have expected. With so many awesome new games coming out, it's hard for me to devote any time to this version that is so similar to the prior version.The speed is awesome and the racing is my favorite part of the game. I did get framerate issues with some of the levels, but it wasn't too bad. It seems that they have cut back on some of the banter between the characters and I appreciated that. The level designs are pretty awesome too. There was obviously a lot of thought put into the mountains and it is pretty cool in that respect. It's cool to able to ride for such a long amount of time without having to stop. Nevertheless, if you didn't play any of the previous versions of this game, check it out. It's fun and offers and incredible challenge to beat. I'll give it a 4 as a standalone product, but if you played Tricky as much as I did, you may want to spend your money on a game that offers you a totally new experience.
|
|
|
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better than Tricky (face it, it is), November 11, 2003
EDIT: Not that anybody probably cares at this point considering this review is over 4 years old, but this review was originally for SSX 3. For some baffling reason, Amazon now has it listed under SSX Tricky (which is still great fun, but I preferred 3 a bit more). A glitch I guess, but this review is NOT for SSX 3.
Though Tricky is great, SSX 3 is almost better in every way.
GAME DESIGN/CONCEPT: SSX 3 is absolutely incredible. There is single play, Conquer the Mountian (which is the meat of the game), and multi play. The "one mountain" approach seems limiting on paper, but I'm willing to wager that it has more replay value than the entire lineup of SSX Tricky levels.
First of all, to clear up any misconceptions, you CANNOT go around the entire mountain. The mountain is organized like one extremely long track, and you can go out of bounds and get penalized for it. It works like this: The mountain has 3 peaks each of which containing 3 to 4 races and 3 to 4 freestyle events (consisting of SlopeStyle (similar to Showoff races in Tricky), Big Air, and SuperPipe) that are all linked together seamlessly. To compete in these events, you don't simply select them from a GUI, but rather you have to ride to each event yourself in Freeride mode (technically you can pause the game and go to Transport, the way players get around, and choose Race or Freestyle and you will be dropped off near the starting point, but you get the idea).
Freeride mode is almost as fun and challenging as the races and freestyle modes itself, having you find multiple objects. It kind of follows the Grand Theft Auto tradition of package hunting, only they're called Collectibles in this game and each one nets you money that goes toward new outfits, updated attributes (HINT: BUY THESE FIRST!), new UBER tricks, new music, and game artwork and other items that you purchase at the Lodges. There are also BIG Challenge points that make you accomplish certain tricks or requirements (eg. jump through all the gates, do not accumulate 8 seconds of air time, pop the balloons) which are probably the most challenging aspect of the game; these also net you money. You can also freeride through the race and freestyle courses (just ride around the starting point) and get collectibles this way. Also, if you miss something important (which happens often) you can Session that spot; this immediately transports you back to a certain spot on that specific course and allows you to try to get something or master a certain jump. NOTE: You can obtain the collectibles while doing races or freestyle events, but you cannot do the BIG Challenges during these matches.
Race mode and freestyle mode net you a lot of money as well. After completing all of the race events and freestyle events for each peak, you are challenged to a one-on-one match against a rival on the top course of the mountain in the respective match category (race or freestyle). After that, you are given the mother of all challenges...race mode sees you racing from the top of that peak to the very bottom of the mountain which Peak 1 demands 11:10 for a gold (make no mistakes!)and freestlye mode makes you earn a certain amount of points from the top of that peak to the end of that peak's SlopeStyle challenge course which Peak 1 demands 700,000 points for a gold. The requirements for completing these events are difficult, so max your stats early on!
GRAPHICS: The graphics are EA Big style (if you've played any EA Big games, you kind of have an idea of what their style is). However, the landscapes are much more detailed than before and the game runs at a smooth framerate (don't be fooled by the choppy introduction movie, that is not real-time gameplay).
MUSIC/SOUND: The music to this game is licensed material, and there is something of a variety here. In order to listen, though, you either buy music from the lodge to listen at your convenience (songs cost $5,000 a pop, but you get 6 free music credits when you start a new Conquer the Mountain file, so choose wisely) or turn on the radio and let the DJ randomly pick audio tracks...or turn off the music and get mountain ambience noise. Unfortunately, the game doesn't support Custom soundtracks, probably because the songs in the game play to how you are playing (like in Tricky, when you are in the air, the EQ drops, when you are doing good or going fast or whatever, you get the chorus, etc.) and thus this additional programming for the included songs probably prevents this. The sound chimes are basically the same thing from SSX Tricky, so it won't take long to familiarize yourself with those.
CONTROL: Finally, you can hold forward on the control stick constantly without having your rider smack face first in the snow, allowing you to actually go fast! The game handles much like the previous game, but this time you can perform UBER tricks on rails and handplants (white button on XBOX) as well as board grinding (right analog stick). Try to use the restart button (back button on XBOX) as little as possible, because you lose virtually all of your boost power for every time it's done as opposed to SSX Tricky.
OVERALL: This game is difficult but is loads of fun. I highly recommend it if you like Tricky but don't love Tricky (I can sense a dividing between Tricky fans and SSX 3 fans). You can probably lose a day's time just spelunking in freeride mode.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
