Midaregami

I have been playing a lot of SSX 3, the acclaimed snowboarding game. I’ve been logging the hours on the PlayStation 2 version, but it’s multiplatform, which is good, because I think lots of people need to play this game. It’s that great.

I know, I know: it’s a sports game, and it’s an X-TREEM sports game, which initially dissuaded me. I mean, it got rave reviews—but so did Madden 2005, and I don’t see myself becoming a big football game fan.

But SSX 3 hits several videogame sweet spots, and I expect I’ll continue to play it on and off for years. Here’s why.

• Difficulty. It has a very carefully calculated difficulty curve. You can begin succeeding at the game almost immediately, winning bronze medals in the first events within a couple of hours of picking up the control. Successes come fairly regularly thereafter.

• Reward system. As you rack up medals, you earn money. You spends this in one of two ways: upgrading your rider or buying accessories. Upgrading increases your speed, trick ability, turning ability and so on. Accessories are totally divorced from performance—the only reason to buy a new board is because it looks cool; the same goes for the mind-boggling selection of clothes you can get.

• Coolness. The game has no relation to the reality of snowboarding. The tricks and environments fly in the face of anything remotely possible, instead focusing on being interesting. I mean, you can’t hit a ramp, catch 500 feet of air, detach your snowboard and whip it a round like a pair of nunchaku in reality, but wouldn’t it be, like, totally radical if you could? (Answer: Yes.)

So far, I’ve gotten gold medals in the freestyle events of the first two of three huge peaks, but the third peak remains very, very difficult. More importantly, I’ve gotten my rider (predictably, the cute Japanese girl) wearing the cutest outfit.
—And a halo, and a snowboard of flame. Lo, I am the angel of the LORD, sent to bring huge air and cast the unworthy off the slopes of Eden. Fear me.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 31st, 2005 at 9:57 am and is filed under Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.