SSX Blur Review

I've always been a fan of Snowboarding games. From 1080 to Cool Boarders, I have tried just about all of them. The whole point of EA's SSX franchise was letting the average Joe enjoy impossible tricks with just a push of a button or flick of the stick. That's why I was caught off guard by the latest entry, SSX Blur by EA for the Nintendo Wii. Returning fans of SSX (and new ones, for that matter) should tread carefully; this game is not what you were expecting. Read on to find out what I'm talking about.

Don't do this at home, kids.

Shit, I've messed up my pants!

First off, I've played and enjoyed all of the SSX games. Sure, they were way over the top and they didn't require much (if any) skill to pull off insane combos. However, the bottom line is, they were just plain fun to play. The variety of the courses and the ease of tricking/comboing made it a great game to pick up and play. It also made it easy to get your friend(s) to join in for a race or too, even if they never played the game before. Even without pulling off a single trick, it was still a blast just to race down through the various courses. All of that is a thing of the past with SSX Blur. This game is hard!

Impossibly hard? No, not by a long shot. In fact, the learning curve was actually not nearly as daunting as I initially thought it was going to be (after reading and hearing about it). But it is still significantly harder than any snowboarding game I've played to date. To put it bluntly, it's going to take some practice just to learn how to steer your character left and right. It is done by tilting the nunchuck and using the analog stick on the nunchuck for extra tight turns. After that, it gets really fun. I once saw a video clip of a guy juggling flaming torches while playing Dance Dance Revolution. To ease your fears, it's not that hard. It will just feel like that when you're first starting off.

Stick with it. Once I got passed the completely new, unfamiliar control scheme, I started to feel a lot more comfortable. I just had to take everything I ever learned from the previous snowboarding games I played... and throw it out the window. Flips and Spins are done by flicking the remote in the given direction. Grabs are a little trickier, but easy enough once you get the hang of it. After about half an hour, I was actually getting first place in some of the events. Another hour after that and I was consistently pulling off a few Ubers as well.

What's an Uber? If you're new to SSX, an Uber is a super combo. In the Wii version of SSX Blur, they are going to be the most aggravating and most rewarding aspect of this title. Basically, each Uber trick has its own line you have to draw on the screen with the Wii remote. Some of these are very simple (like the letter 'Z') and some are very, very hard. Fortunately for you, you can probably 'beat' this game by only learning the first 4 or 5 of them. After that, it's just for the sheer reward/challenge of it. I will tell you this, very few people will achieve 100 percent on this game. If you absolutely have to get 100 percent on every game you buy, then either prepare for a ton of frustration or avoid the game altogether. Otherwise, don't stress over it too much.

There is still a lot of fun to be had here without banging your head against a brick wall, trying to learn all the Uber tricks. In fact, I finished the first mountain merely by learning the first two Ubers. Even then, I used the 'Z' Uber 95 percent of the time and threw in the second one just for variety. What is really nice about the whole Uber trick system is that the developers realized the difficulty in pulling them off. So anytime you want to, you can pause the game and practice any of the one's you've unlocked. The practice mode will let you know whether you're drawing it correctly or not. Once you feel you have it down, un-pause and continue the course. Nice. (Cheater - Ed)

Once you get passed the controls, there's a lot more to love. The graphics are crisp and the sounds are decent. It is a Wii title so I wasn't expecting much in the visual department, but, as fate would have it, I wasn't disappointed either. Everything runs smoothly and doesn't affect the gameplay in any negative fashion. Besides, Wii titles tend to be more about the gameplay rather than flashy graphics, and in that respect, they've done a very nice job here (if you ask me, every game should be like that - Vader).

Multiplayer doesn't do much beyond what you'd expect, but what's there, is all good. Anything you can do in single player, you can pretty much do in the multiplayer mode. Race, Big Air, Downhill trick - it can all be done with friends. And there's a lot to be said for throwing down that extra difficult Uber trick while someone besides the computer is watching. It's not as fun to rub it in when the computer AI can't hear you.

I can do that. It looks easy.

No, my speakers got snowed in!

All this being said, this is probably the best game on the Wii Console right now (since Zelda came out for the Gamecube, right?). It would probably take a you anywhere from half an hour to one hour to get going. Just make it easy on yourself and do your first run without any tricks. Get used to the steering. Next run, ignore the grabs and just do some spins and flips. They are really easy to pull off and the game is generous in letting you land correctly if you hit the 'A' button in time (this pulls you out of whatever flip/spin you are currently doing). Finally, learn one Uber's and learn it well. Learning just one Uber will probably get you through the first mountain trick stages. After that, it's all downhill.

Overall, I really like the direction EA took with this title. They saw what the Wii could do and it took full advantage of it in order to create something completely new and incredibly entertaining. Just don't let people scare you off the game because of the perceived difficulty (like you tried to do at the start of this article Mr. Fear Monger ??? - Ed). Unless you suffer from extreme ADD and you simply cannot spend more then 15 minutes learning a new game without being immediately rewarded, then I strongly suggest you check this game out. You won't find anything like on any other game system.