SSX

The original SSX games are some of the most beloved "extreme" sports games of their generation, lauded for their controls, level design, sense of speed and creativity.

The new SSX...well, at least it has a good soundtrack.

I'm sorry, I simply don't get the love for this game.

Neither control system works very well. For starters The "tap one button then another" mechanic is needlessly complex, what was wrong with just pressing two buttons at the same time? It's also very unresponsive, and you can barely even tell since most of the time you're spinning or flipping while doing the trick. You only know you screw it up when you see your (lack of) points after.

But that's the least of the game's control problems, because neither the standard nor classic control scheme really let you play the game like the old games. In the old games, pressing down the jump button would "lock" your character, allowing you to prewind into a jump or spin so you would rotate faster once in the air. In this new game, you can still prewind, but holding down the jump button no longer locks your character into place. So instead of having a second or two to prewind, you have half a second or less. It's a manic feeling that makes controlling spins nearly impossible.

This wouldn't matter that much if the game was at least a little bit forgiving, but it's not. SSX hates you. If you want gold in an event then you can't make mistakes. A wipeout screws up your momentum so hard that you're never retake first if you lose it, and you need to keep a combo going for the entire level in a trick event if you want to win it. Where's the fun in restarting a race because you wiped out at the last jump? The rewind feature serves no purpose, using it slows you down so much you might as well quit.

Even worse, if you do manage to string together a massive run all in one combo, it might not be enough for a gold medal. I put together a few runs that I considered to be pretty damn epic, and they didn't even get me a silver medal. I compared them to runs on YouTube and I literally can't tell what I'm doing different. When a game's scoring system is that cryptic, something is wrong.

The "deadly descent" stuff is nonsense, frustrating beyond all belief and barely worth a mention. So I'm not going to bother even talking about it. Equally pointless are the RPG elements filled with countless costumes and boards you'll never ever want to use.

If you think this game is a faithful continuation of the SSX series, go to YouTube and watch some clips from Tricky, especially the Aloha Ice Jam and the Tokyo Megaplex levels. THAT'S what SSX should be about. Fun (and very hard) levels that at the same time allow you to be a human.

They also look cool! I get it, these are based on a real mountains. Well, hey, reality is boring. Let me board through a snow covered city or a giant glacier that's melting, not off some dull, gray cliff wall. Why did they remove all that fun stuff but still frame the game around some idiotic competition with horrendous 90s-style motion comics? If you're going to go serious, go serious, don't give us the worst of both worlds.

I'm sure people are going to say that I hate this game just because I'm bad at it. Fine. Whatever. I suck at this game. But I suck at it because it's a frustrating broken mess filled with ugly, hard to navigate levels and poor control, not because it's actually hard. And I have better things to do with my life than play a game over and over again so I can figure out how to overcome its own shortcomings in order to win.