Who would’ve thought snowboarding was cool?
20 years ago, EA were one of the most respected games
publishers. One of their games would witness unexpected success and gave
snowboarding a breath of fresh air.
That game was SSX Tricky for the PS2. It is a snowboarding
game with a style that combines both realism and wackiness.
It consists of 12 characters from a female Canadian voiced
by Lucy Liu to a Ginger-Afro headed show off voiced by David Arquette. There
are 8 downhill slopes from Garibaldi to Alaska, getting harder and competitive
every venue. All of these memorable characters and venues help give SSX Tricky
variety
You can choose to race a single match, practice, score the most tricks or enter the World Circuit to unlock all the costumes and boards for your chosen character.
Practice mode is literally what it says, skiing around
before you’re confident. There is a trick book to try out new tricks from
beginner to master. The way to score the most points is either learning these
tricks and try to perform them during the world circuit. Honestly, I would
recommend practicing first.
This allows the ‘trick-o-meter’ to rise to the top and
allows you to perform an uber trick. Just press the Square button and one of
the shoulder buttons. This allows you to gain more points and gain more speed
than the other competitors. Just make sure you have enough airtime; if you
perform an uber trick in a short time and fail, then your speed will be
reduced.
The World Circuit is really enjoyable. Before a match
starts, your character would either joke to their friend or enemy. If you
knockout someone neutral in a race, they would probably become your enemy. If
you knockout your enemy, however, your trick-o-meter becomes full. Honestly,
it’s so satisfying to see your enemy get pushed from his or her board, until it
happens to you.
Object of the game? Win all the races in the heat, semis and
final in every venue and try to finish in the top 3 every single race to
improve your character.
Once completing the game, you unlock Untracked. This is a
slope that’s close to snowboarding down Ben Nevis. For completing the trick
stages, you unlock Pipedream; a course that’s literally Heaven for ramps and
rails.
If you wanted to ask me who I chose, Moby was my pick. He’s
a loud-mouth, but passionate British dude. Hearing him go ballistic while in
the air is a chuckle as he sings out ‘Rocket Man’.
Overall, SSX Tricky is entertaining and ‘tricky’. The
venues, characters and even the breakbeat techno music are well designed and
fit the game perfectly. The physics can be a bit of trouble, but that minor
complaint does not bring the game down. This game is a testament to
snowboarding and proved that at one point, EA were respected and beloved.
Score: 9/10
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