The game series of SSX has been largely hit and miss in past years. Starting off way back on the PS2 the game was an arcade style racer with a lot of fun and lee-way into a cool snowboarding experience. However, over the years the series drifted into becoming either stale or just not that memorable depending on your gameplaying experience. But this year, EA Games are ready to blow it out of the park. 

During a live stream from EA Sports, the third game shown off was SSX. With producer Connor Dougan at the helm, the game was shown off in it's entirety with brand new modes, gameplay styles, soundtrack and a mess of other cool features in the upcoming snowboarding game.

Starting off the stream, we saw the game being played out by one of their official playtesters, who's name I sadly cannot recall and Connor began speaking about the current franchise and how EA was psyched to reboot it this year on March 1st in Australia and March 2nd in New Zealand. The game looks amazing from the get go.  Over the top tricks, arcade style of game play. Focusing on reality defying stunts on realistic terrains shows off the massive open experience and social competition.

The game can take place on 9 of the biggest mountain regions including Rockies,  Alaska, Africa, New Zealand and Siberia. Three main styles of modes: Race it, trick it, survive it. They said they wanted a similar style to the Burnout series in terms of speed and flow. They also wanted to redefine Social Competition with their online mode. They compared it to NFS's Autolog with their own RiderNet. A part of their new gameplay system, RiderNet gives recommendations for players showing off the best drops, maps and challenges for you and your friends. It also can be helped along with the iPhone app that can alert you on the go.

One of the first levels they showed off gave us an example of the gameplay and the speed the game runs at and it's intensely fun to say the least. You can ride up walls, halfpipes and trick and jump off a helicopter. The levels themselves are a feast for the eyes with so many points of being airborne and at one point you can see a crashed train yard. One of the key parts of the game is the drop points and with over 150 key drop points, globally, it's gonna be very difficult to become bored of this title.

With a focus on the globe they used NASA topography data to calculate portions of the game. For example the multiple mountain ranges could be rendered in 28 seconds with gps signalling and then adjusted in a few hours to create a 3D replica of the mountain. Connor noted that in real life there's not that much on the mountains to create a course but they work with the landscape and adjust it to make it one long track with very little artistic license, sans the rails and helicopters.

One of the biggest additions I've seen is the fantastic Rewind Mode which you can use to retry or reloop tricks as you go down the slopes. During the Survive tracks this comes in handy. There are several modes in the deadly descent - 9 different ones. Avalanches in Alaska, huge gaps that you cross with wing suits in Patagonia and even surprise avalanches during the world tour mode. There is a beautifully cinematic show off of the avalanche inspired by reverse angle camera's from Snowboarding movies. As you continue down the track the trail gets more and more unstable. The Survive It event even has a visibility challenge to show how far you can see down the track and make it to the end despite all the snow.

The Wingsuit is an awesome feature and will help you string tricks together as you glide over canyons and large portions of the track. The suit itself, as well of plenty of other gear can be bought with points you rack up during the game which includes a Big Head and Big Hand purchases for the game's more fun players. Different gear and different types of clothing will give you this or that advantage as you play through the game either head-to-head online or in your trick-filled runs.

Multipliers build up by tricks and help build speed and beating opponents. Another interesting feature is the collectible GeoTags and can be placed in the levels and can earn SSX credits when challenging your friends and wanting to upgrade your character. You can put them in difficult places and psyche out your even most skillful friends. They said they really want to be pushing competition and explore mode - which will have you chasing records and beating other people creating more and more events and which you can always be notified via the app.

Global events, live on-going tournaments with friends and players abroad with your own custom global event. Restrict it to friends or just mutual friends. You can change the options and limit rewinds or geotag placements. GeoTags actually depend on level progression and level 10 - which may upgrade after shipping of the game - is the highest you can go. Middle of the levelling up gives you the right to place GeoTags per run.  If you are good at the wingsuits you can skip portions of the track but you will miss out on some great tricks.

The wingsuits themselves are based on a realistic flight model and really show when you take flight over Patagonian gaps.  The game looks like real classic arcade style fun with more than 6-8 hours of play in just the tour mode which will be good for completist. Also one of my favourite systems is the Harmony Remix System which will fade in and drop the track during tricks or particularly exciting parts. I heard some dubstep and obviously the Tricky remix from the ads.  Also a song by The Naked and The Famous during the stream.

All three games look and play amazing but SSX stands out among them all. They are pure high energy fun and to draw their comparison it feels like Burnout in terms of speed, challenge and modes. This is so on my list for 2012 and I just hope that I can review it in the coming months. Thanks again to the guys from EA Sports  for putting up the stream and for letting me check out some of their most innovative and fun titles to play in 2012.

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