SSX 3 (Xbox)

- One massive mountain, divided into 3 peaks, which you can explore freely in between events.
- Expanded Uber trick system, including rail tricks and monster tricks.
- Earn cash through finding secrets and winning events. Spend cash on rider stat's improvements, new gear to wear, music tracks and art.
- Greater variety of events, including big air and rival challenges.

SSX is a lot different to all the other snowboarding games out there such as Amped. SSX throws away realism and instead focuses on massive tricks, imaginative courses and high speed. I personally love the arcadey feel to the game and simplicity of controls, but if you are after a more serious game this may not be the one for you.

The parts I love the most are the new ability to explore the mountain at will and find hidden items/challenges. It's great to just cruise with no real goal and see what you can do. Also, I was very impressed by the amount of customisation you can do with the riders. There are hundreds of things to buy and wear, from new boots to skeleton heads.

My main complaint with this game is that you have to build up each rider separatley. If you unlock all the peaks with Kaori (the cutest rider!), you still have to do it all for the rest of the riders. This extends the gameplay, but makes it very repetitive. However, if you want to play a 2 player game with maxed out character stats, you must earn all those stats for each of the riders you will use. This took me about 12 hours for each rider!

Despite these flaws, this is still an excellent game that is fun for quick blasts or when you have your mates over. See you on the peak!

New Features

conquer the mountain
Super Uber Tricks (when meter goes orange)
Mini chalenges on freeride
Uber Grinds
You can link tricks together(combos)by using the right analogue stick.
Super pipe (huge long half pipes)

The great things about this game is that the learning curve isn't too steep. The whole point of this game is that you go over 70mph down a huge mountain. Ther are 3 impressive peaks with great effects. 1st peak is a part of the mountain that isn't viscious. I'ts not too hard for ssx newbies. You grind a huge Bill Board and after you get of it it collapses, thats cool. 2nd peak gets a bit moody and not only are you moving, you get trees falling, even a cable car comes falling down in front of you. On peak 3, at one point towards the end of a race your aircraft(what you drop out onto the mountain) falls infront of you and crashes. You also get brilliant avalanches. As the mountain is falling apart you grind the remaining tiny bits that are left.

The new feature is conquer the mountain mode where you don't get so many menu screens. As your bombing down the mountain you can get money by pulling off Uber tricks, not just from winning races. When going down mountain you get sighn posts saying either race, freestyle and big air. This beats menu screens from tricky. If you want to get somewhere quicker you push start and go onto transport.

A great challeng(not really a challenge unless you have stats up) is a 30 minuite race from the top of the montain. I'ts close to perfection because whist going down the mountain it's super fast, smooth action. Just before a jump you hold A to build up speed and then release A at the top of a ramp. Whilst in mid air you then use the D pad to spin then you hold down B,Y,X,R trigger, R trigger + B, R trigger + X. To go to the extreme you hold down the left trigger + B ect. There is a meter on the right of the screen. That fills up as you pull of tricks. You can use it for a quick burst of speed(by using X). After 1 or 2 decent tricks your bar turns gold. As I said before you have to hold Left trigger + B ect. Your character does a basic Uber trick(buy stretching leg out). Do 4 of these and your bar goes orange. These are more complex super Uber tricks. For example your character spins his or her board stylishly and your character might do sumersaults. Do another 5 Super Uber tricks and your bar turns red(infinity super Uber). This runs out after 2 minuits and goed back to the orange bar(super Uber).

Along on your way on the mountain you get a Lodge. This is where you can buy atributes(improve characters abilities). On attributes you improve Acceleration, speed, spin, Touthness, edging, there are 11 squares to fill up on atributes. To fill up first square you need 500$, when you go up each square it doubles each time. Buy new Uber Moves, buy accesories like silly hats, new clothes, buy 2 videos(not real life videos with real life Snow Boarding pros, just intro of ssx3 and a video of ssx3 old intro in works).

This game is worth your money.

Not even 10% of the way thorugh and already a far more immersive experience, the challenge the mountain option has so much that after tricky, its a touch intimidating and i hoped none of the fun had been lost.

While that may be true of the menu and charcter selction screens, it isn't true of the game, it is still one of the most immersive games there is and as ever the fluidity of the level design is a joy to partake in!

Firstly, the graphics are a big improvement over SSX Tricky, and you really get the feel of being in the mountains as you carve up the power. All types of weather and lighting effects really make boarding down the slopes a real pleasure. In fact it’s the type of game you don’t mind sitting and watching a mate play, just so you can get a proper look at the scenery, as you don’t get much chance while doing some insane trick or other. The weather effects range from perfect sunlight to mist, snow and wind, with the latter really causing you problems if you gauge a jump wrong with a cross wind.

Gameplay, has taken the good stuff from SSX Tricky and expanded on it. The UBER tricks have two parts to them meaning the tricks you can perform change as you fill your UBER bar, which means you have an enormous trick range even at the start, and that can be expanded as you gain money during the game. The tricks have been enhanced by the fact you now have grabs, hand plants, and the ability to manual between tricks to build up insane long combos (I did a 198 one last night).
Most things in the game that you can improve are done with cash that you earn from the events in game or from picking on money pickups on the slopes. The things you can buy range from abilities to improve how fast you can move to how fast you spin through the air, to items you can wear etc. You can also buy extra UBER tricks to use and lots of rather silly novelty items –like a paper bag over your head or a head made of balloons- that may appeal to some people.

The main thing that really made this a good game for me is that while you have lots of event types to choose from –race, big air, half-pipe and slope-style- you can also just free ride the mountains for fun from top to bottom, while doing extra little challenges on route if you wish. On peak three it can take you about half an hour to get from top to bottom (took me 26 minutes first time down, but I have little doubt you could cut about least 4 or 5 minutes off that time). The mountains are so free in where you can go that it’s actually quite hard to follow the same path you did the last time down, so expansive is quite an understatement with regards to the mountain layout.

Lastly, I would say the that this game has good longevity, and I expect you will be playing it hour after hour for the first few weeks and going back to it for many weeks there after. Great snowboarding game!

The second most impressive part is the slopes themselves. Theyve created slopes which have different weather conditions or obstructions. From falling icycles to thunder knocking over trees and many many more, all the levels are new and are more fun than ever and more interesting than ever instead of a bunch of new levels which could have come from SSX tricky but tarted up.

So with all of this said...what else does it have thats new.
Well firstly scattered about in free roam mode there is "big challenges", from jumping through hoops to finding lost snow gear. There are crystalys everywhere for raising your cashflow...which brings me onto the one point i didn't enjoy about the game, if only a minor one, and thats that they now have a money system similar to Tony Hawks 4 etc. Money buys you stats, tricks, equipments, new clothes and accersores for your charachter and more. This is all very nice but it means if you dont buy the extras, you dont have to get very far before you can have a fully upgraded charachter. Personally i think they should have kept the same points system as SSX tricky (events converts to upgrading points) and kept money for the extras. Money can be gained anywhere though, completeing an event to a "big"challenge or picking up crystals or even the odd 1 - 20 dollars for tricks depending on the points it made.

Finally, they changed the Uber Tricks system so there are 2 levels of Uber tricks, which is an improvement and these tricks are now also grabs instead of just a trick and also you can "manual" and perform different grinds to link up tricks for combos although not as strict as say Tony Hawks to when you loose the combo. ALL in ALL a tremendous game, one that will be hard to improve on next time im sure and one you should all go out and buy (from Amazon because its cheaper). So many XBOX games are lacking ive found, this is definately not one of them.