I remember playing the original Coolboarders for the Playstation I back in the day (by which I mean the late '90s, of course). I thought to myself, "A snowboarding game? This is going to suck." And largely, it did. Well, not entirely - it was fun for its time. But it only kept me interested for five or ten minutes, a race or two at a time, at which point I would casually move on and started replay Metal Gear Solid for the umpteenth time. And thus, snowboarding exited my life entirely.
That is, until the Playstation 2 arrived at my doorstep, along with the much-hyped SSX (short for Snowboard Supercross).
I admit that I was still skeptical even with all the hype and raving about the original. Another snowboarding game? Oh boy, let's race down a mountain in 90 seconds. Oh boy, it's like a car racing game only it's downhill and on snow. Yippee. But boy, was I wrong. First of all, the races are generally five to seven minutes long. Second, it was a little more involved than simply racing downhill on snow: tricks were the name of the game here. SSX was brilliant. Absolutely marvelous - and people started buying PS2s simply so they could experience the thrill.
A year later, the publishers over at EA Sports Big (SSX, NBA Street) decided to release SSX Tricky. Tricky was largely hyped as being a "director's cut" of the original. It promised an extra level here and there and maybe an added character, as well as behind-the-scenes footage of the creation of the game. Wonderful - so Tricky was just to be the same game with special features and no new gameplay. That's a good way to make an extra buck, right? Again, I was dead wrong.
SSX Tricky stands on its own as an amazing game, quite a few steps beyond the original. Forget the "director's cut," this is a full-fledged sequel. With substantial gameplay additions, graphical enhancements, multiple new characters and courses, and a much higher production value, SSX Tricky sits atop the world of PS2 games.
Gameplay
Never has the PS2's dual-shock 2 controller been utilized so well. Tricky was developed specifically for this controller and it shows. The game plays like butter. It's quick and responds on a dime, with brilliant button layout. Simply, the boarder is controlled using the left analog, X crouches making the boarder go faster, Square utilizes the adrenaline boost, Triangle changes the camera, the directional pad controls flips and spins, and the shoulder buttons are magnificent. Each of the four shoulder buttons corresponds to a different board grab. Shoot off a ramp and hold L1, you'll do an Indy Air; how about R1 and L2? you'll do a Stalemaskey Air; all four shoulder buttons? You'll do an experimental grab where your boarder actually removes one of his/her feet from the board. Very sweet.The true innovation in this version of SSX however, comes with the addition of the insanely fun, insanely unrealistic, and insanely cool uber-tricks. As you do tricks, your boarder racks up points and adrenaline. As the adrenaline meter on the side of the screen fills up, you can use the Square button and turn the adrenaline into a speed boost. Waiting until your meter is full, however, results in what we like to call Tricky. Once your boost hits its max, your boarder is given 15 seconds of "Tricky" during which he/she can pull off an uber-trick. To do an uber-trick, you simply go off a ramp and do a board grab while holding Square. The resulting trick will astonish you. Each rider has four unique uber-tricks (one for each shoulder button) and they include everything from your boarder break dancing on his board in mid-air to simply doing a kick-flip with your board. These tricks add an enormous degree of fun to SSX Tricky and they raise the points stakes to new levels. A typical grab will range anywhere from 800 to 4,000 points. An uber-trick, however, brings in 15,000-plus points.
Additionally, there are three modes of gameplay. There is a practice mode where your boarder simply rides down the course without time limits and you can do as you please. A race mode where you race against five other boarders in three heats, medaling in each one results in enhanced attributes for your rider. Then there's a showoff mode where your boarder races down the mountain alone trying to rack up the most points possible; again, obtaining medals in showoff allows you to boost your character's attributes. Showoff is crazy fun. And to make it even more fun, they've added snowflake multipliers to the courses and installed temporary ramps for your jumping, point-gathering pleasure. Sure, the extra ramps are fun. But the multipliers are genius. There are three varieties worth varying amounts; hit one of the multipliers while performing a trick and it multiplies the point value for that trick. Hit a yellow snowflake for instance and your point value for that trick doubles, an orange one triples the value, and the all-powerful red snowflakes multiply five-fold.
SSX Tricky doesn't just make snowboarding fun, it takes snowboarding to an entirely new level. It's uber-snowboarding, baby. Bring it on.
Grade: A+
Graphics:
Silky, silky smooth. Framerate is important for fast-paced racing games with lots of racers and SSX Tricky doesn't disappoint. The framerate stays high throughout and the entire presentation from the opening menu, to the character select screen, to the races is extremely polished. EA Sports Big took their time putting this game together and it shows everywhere you look.
The character animations are also superb, especially for a racing game. Everything from the excellent head-tracking of the racers, to the joint animations when landing jumps, to the animations as your rider glides down the course is flawlessly executed.
And the particle effects from the falling snow, to fireworks, to other random effects are in full-force and nicely done. My only real complaint in the graphics department is with the horizon. In the distance of each track, you can see mountains, cities, beaches (yes, one level is in Hawaii!! Why not?), etc. And the backgrounds really are flat and lacking. However, I suppose something is better than nothing. Had they simply chosen to make the background a night sky instead, I never would've noticed.
Overall, Tricky is very slick, very well presented, and simply a beauty.
Grade: A
Sound:
SSX Tricky uses sound quite well. Though in one area it falls short of its predecessor and you have to wonder why. In the original SSX, each track had its own unique fast-paced song. These songs were great, so addictive in fact that a friend of mine went so far as to download them onto his computer. I'd say he's crazy, but they were great tunes - really. They failed to use the same songs in Tricky though. Well, some of the original songs are back in remixed forms. But why rehash something that was brilliant? I wish they would've kept the original score and perhaps added a few new tunes for the new courses. Oh well. The remixes are still good, just not the originals that I'd grown used to. It's like hearing a techno remix of a Beatles song, you just don't want that.Tricky did add some new features in the sound department that work nicely. And the most notable addition was to give the riders more "personality." To do this, they scripted probably two-dozen voice clips for each rider, everything from taunts to self-critiques of your riding performance. It's great. The riders really do have well-defined personalities. Not to mention that EA Sports Big managed to get a few professional actors to do the voices. You've probably heard of a few of them: Tufts alum Oliver Platt, Lucy Liu, David Arquette, Macy Gray, Billy Zane to name a few.
Big pluses for the voice acting, and little grumblings with the musical score for the individual tracks. But still, very well done. Just bring back the original tunes for the third game!
Grade: A-
Replay Value:
Multiplayer madness will last you for ages. Not to mention the competitiveness of trying to best your friends' top scores on the various tracks in single player showoff. Rarely do games come along that are this fun and that have a shelf life that's this long. Honestly, I play Tricky more than any other game. Yes, Tricky even finds its way into my PS2 more often than the deified Grand Theft Auto 3. That should really say something.
Grade: A+
Brilliance on every level. It's pure fun packaged on a DVD with a PS2 logo slapped on it. Along with Grand Theft Auto 3, SSX Tricky is one of the few next-generation games that deserves to be mentioned on that "best games of all-time" list. It's really that good.
Overall: A+
