On the fence about SSX because you can't even hit the silver metal trick goal? About ready to throw your controller after trying for over an hour to finish the race event in first place? Well, it looks like the full game is going to have a MUCH kinder learning curve.

I just watched a video of the beginning of the full game, and the goals starting out are far less demanding.

The race event is the same as in the demo. The player finished the race in first place with a time of 2:45, was at least five or six seconds ahead of second place, and they crashed several times.

The first trick event in the game is a one on one race with a rival. The player scored about 530,000 points. The rival scored 428,000.

And even if you're great at the demo, you should be happy to hear that you CAN knock down rival riders in single player mode. It seems that the demo is basically a simulation of a multiplayer event, in that you're riding against ghosts. Their race times and trick scores are pretty much set in stone. That won't be the case with the full game.

The difficulty setting sounds decent. From beginners to pro.

Unless specifically stated that you're riding against a ghost, there's collision in the single player. So you can knock em down at the beginning of the race.

Thats pretty good to know. So far on most of the events I can only manage about a bronze metal and am about a quarter of the points of most of the people on my fiends list. I think this may have more to do with me getting greedy on tricks and thinking I have time for one more trick when I dont.

530,000 for a whole trick run? I'm managing to get that within two-three jumps int he demo level, wonder if it's a super short track or something.

I have a feeling they'll keep the World Tour stuff easy enough to teach people the game, then Explore will be where all the crazies go to smash ridiculous records.

@SpaceInsomniac said:

And even if you're great at the demo, you should be happy to hear that you CAN knock down rival riders in single player mode. It seems that the demo is basically a simulation of a multiplayer event, in that you're riding against ghosts. Their race times and trick scores are pretty much set in stone. That won't be the case with the full game.

I can't quite tell whether you're misunderstanding what the demo is or if it's just the wording that's weird, but so people don't get confused I'll just say that what I bolded isn't quite correct. The demo is two tracks from explore mode, and that mode will be exactly like what's in the demo but with the added ability to create simultaneous multiplayer events. In explore the tracks are unlocked with currency and can be taken on in any order. The A.I. times will be set in stone like the demo as they will be just ghosts. What you saw was World Tour which is basically the story mode. There I believe things will be more linear with a more traditional difficulty curve. World Tour will be about taking on the 9 deadly descents with other trick and race events intermixed between them. I don't know exactly how long or involved World Tour mode will be but it's been described as an "extended tutorial," whereas explore mode has been called "the meat of the game." by the developers.

Felt so proud (as a SSX novice) eventually getting gold on the demo race event. Trick mode is a little tougher, but perfectly doable with a little practice.

However, its probably a good thing that the World Tour will have a more forgiving learning curve.

Oh, awesome. All the more reason to get excited.

Yeah, I had pretty hard time playing the demo. Granted, it was my first time playing an SSX game but damn!

I'm very interested in seeing more of that game, it looks really cool.

Yeah that's what I was thinking. There's no way that what we've seen in the demo is the starting challenge. I have friends who have difficulty getting silver and I'm not sure they'll buy the game. I'm pretty psyched about the game and I think I fared pretty well in the demo, so can't way to see all the drops/.

I'll let my friend know about the difficulty curve and hope they'll buy it. If not, well I can always write my name in the Giant Bomb SSX friend list thread... and realize I suck :P

Oh, good. I was really afraid they weren't going to let you punch out the other racers. Good to know.

@Barrabas: I think it's not unreasonable that a lot of people would get confused about Free Roam/Story Mode. The demo initially starts off very linear like a Story Mode setting and then says "hey go try this other track in the Explore Mode!" They don't really define those terms that great so I can also see how newcomers might feel discouraged and confused thinking these Demo levels which usually come from early on in the game have such crazy score requirements. The fact that the gold rider starts off with 0 points and shoots up to 11 million after one jump also seems iffy as hell.

That's good to know. The tutorial in the demo was decent, but I don't think it did a great job of really showing you what you need to do to win races. I guess it expects you to learn a lot as you play, but a less steep learning curve would definitely help with that.

All it took was watching a youtube video of somebody doing 50 millions. Alone by poorly emulating that dude, I raised my score from 10+ millions with a 6 millions average run to 20+ millions with a 15 millions average run. Getting there and it's a lot of fun being there. Going to be a rad week of SSX, before Mass Effect 3 sucks the air right out of that room for awhile.

I really don't get why EA places their big games so close together. Freaks me out really.

I love punching people!

also, to anyone who sucks at the demo, feel freed to add me on XBL: CapnThrash . It'd be nice to have some people who are closer to my level on my friends list haha

I am having trouble just keeping straight. I end up all over the goddamn mountain

EDIT: Same here. If you feel a bit under par for this game, add me. I will make you feel a whole lot better

You don't mention that in Explore mode, they've cranked the Gold medal time for the race from the demo to 1:57. Cruel bastards!

@Skillface said:

You don't mention that in Explore mode, they've cranked the Gold medal time for the race from the demo to 1:57. Cruel bastards!

My guess is that this was done because in the full game you're not always going to be a level four character with crap gear.

@SpaceInsomniac: Good point, that's what I assumed. I think they were locked at level 4. So I can only imagine what will happen with full upgrades...

The controls take a while to get used to, there aren't many other games where you're using all the buttons very frequently.

The single player is a lot easier on new players and eases you into the game better. That being said, the global events and Explore mode in general make playing fun, even if you're not great at the game.

I liked the demo well enough, but kind if disliked the controls, if that makes sense. I'm still too hard wired for the Tony Hawk play style, where you hold down the Ollie button indefinitely until you hit a ramp, and you have full motion. It feels like holding the jump button increased your turn radius significantly in SSX.