1001 Video Games: You Must Play Before You Die by Mott Tony

Author:Mott, Tony [Mott, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Littlehampton
Published: 2011-12-04T23:00:00+00:00

2000s

SSX Tricky

Original release date : 2001

Platform : Various

Developer : Electronic Arts

Genre : Sports

Wintry counterparts to the mega-popular Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series, the SSX snowboarding games were probably the best sports titles to come out of Electronic Arts during the PlayStation 2 generation. The varied stages of SSX Tricky, the sequel to the original, mark the height of the series’ esoteric wackiness. (The third volume—SSX3— would shift to the grander, more unified setting of one monstrous peak.) In SSX Tricky, though, every track is a distinct adventure, each more impossible than the last: the snow-capped buttes of Mesablanca, the urban powder of Merqury City, the gravity-immune melting glacier of Aloha Ice Jam, etc. These landscapes, riddled with shortcuts and surprises, are the main characters of the game.

Of course, the actual characters aren’t bad, either. You choose your rider from a cast of eccentrics, ranging from a Japanese schoolgirl to a British street biker, and work your way to the top of the international racing circuit. Smooth controls make it a pleasure to carve your board around the steep turns of each racetrack, but the real joy happens in midair, where you execute the twists, grabs, and backflips that give SSX Tricky its name. In fact, the game’s Show-Off mode dispenses with the race premise altogether and simply rewards you for how many badass jumps you can pull off without face-planting in the snow.

Hip-hop and techno backing tracks remix themselves on the fly to match your progress, so when you’re cranking out “Über Tricks,” the beats are pumping. This audio legerdemain feeds the sensation that every part of the game is moving in sync, from your thumbs to the last pixel on the screen. Motion-controls interfaces are all well and good, but a gimmicky joystick will have trouble matching the kinetic thrill of SSX Tricky. JT

See all games from the 2000s.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.