SSX Blur

The Good: Great Graphics and original soundtrack - Tons of events to choose from - When you master them, the controls work great - Plenty of weird yet lovable characters - Nice sense of speed

The Bad: No online play - Controls are very difficult to master - Hard difficulty
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SSX blur has to be one of the hardest games on the Wii, not only because of the game itself but also for the very difficult controller. I've never played any of the ssx games before, so i was skeptical about picking this up but i must say i am glad i did.

The purpose in the game is ski and snowboarding racing, but there are also other events. The main game is divided in three peaks, each with it's own set of events and difficulties. It sounds simple but as you progress the game gets harder and harder. There's a lot of events in the game, from the usual racing to trick points pipe line and many more, though the high level of difficulty is frustrating some times.

The gameplay isn't simple, in fact it may take over two hours to play this game perfectly. Movement, speed, and jumping is controlled through the Nunchuk, you can move and steer by tilting the nunchuck in the direction you wish to move your character - this particular use of the Wii's motion controls feels great. You can also jump with the A button and swing the wiimote in any direction to perform tricks, the basic controls are great; though its hard to perform your desired trick so in the end you'll just start doing random movements.

To do the ubertricks (they're some kind of special moves) you have to fill the groove meter by doing regular tricks, after this a small icon will appear on the screen telling you to draw a specific shape with the wiimote such as a heart or a treble clef. The problem is that the ubertricks are extremely hard to pull out, when you do them it's very satisfying; but you wont do them much. And it's disappointing and frustrating at the same time because in later tournaments you'll need to use the ubertricks on a regular bassist to win. It will take you hours to master this aspect of the game.

The graphics are superb, the snow and lighting effects are great and the characters animations are awesome, the cell shaded style really fits the game. Though there are some glitches, but nothing that detracts from the overall look of the game.

The sound is also excellent, there are many great sound effects in the game and the music is fantastic, by far the best original soundtrack EA has dones on the Wii. The voice acting is done by the DJ Atomika of radio big and you'll enjoy his talk during the game because he's really cool.

The game really fails in the multiplayer department, it's up to four players and no online, plus, the extremely hard gameplay makes it even harder to convince a friend or a family member to play it with you. The replay value is in the career mode, each character has it's own carrer and unlockable skis or snowboards and that makes you comeback everytime to unlock even more stuff. The game also has an excellent sense of speed and you really feel like you're on a mountain race.

Overall, this game is great, the high challenge level restricts the game to hardcore audiences only, but if you have the patience and don't throw your wii remote at the wall you're going to have a blast with this game because under it's hardcore layer lies an extremely enjoyable experience.