As you curl around a banked corner, the lip of a large ramp of snow appears in the distance and your mind begins to race at the possibilities for gnarliness that lie ahead. Slamming the boost and tucking your body forward, you scorch towards the precisely constructed mound, pre-winding your hands, arms and shoulders for maximum rotation upon lift off. As you get closer the brilliant white becomes horizontally streaked and blurred with red. The edge of the ramp screams ‘Jump!' And you obey. For a moment you are dancing in an ocean of blue nothingness, accompanied only by your board and the faint whistling of the wind.
This is SSX Tricky.
Released on November 30th in 2001 for the GameCube and other home systems of the time, this pseudo-sequel to the PlayStation 2 exclusive original is based on the snowboarding discipline known as Boardercross, created by Steve Rechtschaffner, the executive producer of the SSX series. With its roots in Motocross, Boardercross features multiple competitors on one course battling to the finish line, whereas competitive snowboarding traditionally focuses on time trials. Courses are also more elaborate, with gaps to cross and sharper turns to navigate; consequently these races are often high speed and full contact.
However, SSX Tricky is definitely an arcade orientated experience. While the DNA of the real life sport is present, its genes are woven with trick multipliers, speed boosts, wild personalities and wilder courses. Track design truly is unlike any other snowboarding title that came before. Multiple routes can be taken down the hill; some are short-cuts vital for first place finishes, some are more scenic and filled with big air opportunities for the trick focused Show Off Mode. Both racing and trick focused modes are simple affairs at their core. You're respectively challenged with either beating all competitors over three increasingly difficult races on the same track, or reaching a set number of points before reaching the finish.
Building upon this base is the inclusion of power-ups. In Show Off these consist of score multiplying Snow Flakes cunningly placed along risky but high scoring areas, coming in flavours or 2x, 3x and 5x multipliers. Grabbing these requires full mastery of the rider and board, as well as being intimately familiar with the courses. Understanding when and where big score opportunities will be coming up is crucial, as is settling into the very definite rhythm of each track. Misjudge a landing and you'll cripple your speed, potentially shutting off access to an area just up ahead that demands you approach it at full pelt. Consequently, you'll be forced to take an alternative route and must rapidly change your path down the slope, realigning yourself to the beats of this new heading.
This exercise in muscle memory has one big pay-off though, because when things are going without a hitch, your rider chaining together moves and lines elegantly, a prominently displayed score on the screen racks up into the tens of thousands per move. Going from a beginner player who can just about land on a rail and balance all the way down its length, to an expert who breezes down the mountain with grace, is a supremely rewarding journey.
Collectables in races come in the form of Speed Boosts that maintain top speed, plus Trick Boosts that can be immediately tricked from, greatly increasing your mid-air turn speed. Scrambling for these while surrounded by riders that are more than happy to Road Rash style punch you to the ground makes for high energy sequences. It's worth noting that riders tend to group together for the majority of the race, either hot on your heels or mere metres ahead, an artificial but subtle rubber banding that keeps races dynamic for players of all levels.
Progression through the Career mode unlocks skill points and new boards that boost your abilities in Edging, Speed, Stability and Tricks, adding a very light layer of strategy. Each of these skills becomes exceptionally important at higher levels of competition, with the need to balance skills accordingly. Each character is naturally proficient in specific areas, so determining your own personal play style and building upon these factors is of high priority to new players.
The biggest addition to the series in SSX Tricky is Uber tricks. Performing enough grabs, spins and grinds fills your boost meter to the brim and gives a short period of time for players to instigate one of these insane manoeuvres. These vary from the character removing themselves from the board's bindings, spinning it with one hand and returning to their original position, to physics-defying mega spins. Outlandish and impressive, they yield the most points and add one letter to a greyed out 'Tricky' word above your boost meter, completion of which bestows infinite turbo. Uber tricks would come to represent the general direction of the franchise; one of excess bordering on absurdity.
Besides the eye catching on-screen avatars, the true stars of the game are the courses on which they compete. Going back a couple of years before the inception of SSX (and with the exception of the super-deformed stylings of Snowboard Kids), snowboarding games largely featured realistic environs. Titles like Cool Boarders and the ESPN Winter X-Games series, released around the same time, have a colour palette revolving around whites and greys. Not so in SSX Tricky.
In addition to course layouts that are closer to interactive roller coasters than sterile mountainsides, each track has a striking theme and direction of colour. Mesablanca, set in the USA's dry and dusty South West is permeated with deep reds and oranges, the pinball inspired three lap oval that is Tokyo Megaplex is streaked with the neons of late night Shibuya. It's only Untracked, a wilderness bereft of human interference that lacks colour, a natural wonderland of virgin snow just waiting to be imprinted with a sweeping carve of a snowboard.
A de facto requirement for any extreme sports title is a perfectly pitched soundtrack to accompany proceedings. While series like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater are aimed squarely at punk and urban, SSX Tricky draws its sound from the artist that inspired its title: Run DMC. This game boasts a melting pot of high tempo electronica, old-skool hip-hop and rock, all mixed by an at-the-top-of-his-game Mix Master Mike and MC'd by human beatbox Rahzel. At the time it was different, fresh and an audiophile's dream come true. Rahzel's commentating, meanwhile, is enthusiastic for the player to succeed but critical when things go wrong. Your goal, to quote the man himself, is to “show them how great you are”.
Impressively, the soundtrack is dynamic, based on your performance and location on track. Screaming into first place brings a big and bold bass filled beat, while dropping to last rips it out. Hitting a short-cut triggers sound bites of schlocky fifties sci-fi movies played out to an eerily calm backing track. Action and audio curating itself in this fashion is still amazing to hear to this day; at the time, it was mind blowing.
Audio was such a big deal to EA that they took the still rare step of hiring a veritable legion of famous voice talent to provide vocals to the cast. Sadly, it's here that SSX Tricky has its major stumbling block. Promotional material and videos described characters as 'zany', and if that's not enough of an immediate warning sign, hiring Bif Naked to play a caffeine fuelled gothy punk certainly is. Macy Gray, David Arquette, Billy Zane and many more all turn in passionless performances that do nothing for the badly written script. One exception, however, is Jim Rose who plays Psymon, an unhinged metalhead. Drawing from his background as a freaky alternative circus performer, Psymon's intensely psychopathic portrayal is genuinely funny.
Conclusion
While the first SSX helped further usher in the sixth generation of consoles, SSX Tricky was the title that brought the EA Sports 'Big' label to the front and centre of the public eye. Hailed by critics and solidifying the artistic direction of the series to this day, Tricky was much copied but never bettered. The 'Big' initiative never really took off in the way EA was hoping though; the goodwill generated by the game didn't stop interest waning.
Now a new SSX is set for release on PS3 and 360 in the near future, and looks to redefine itself after later sequels lost their way. We'll soon see if they can recapture the powdery magic of this, the best loved entry in the series. For the time being though this title defines what SSX stood for and what it brought to the landscape at the time; an incredibly fun and slickly produced extreme sports game that still impresses today.
Comments 35
I need to get this.
SSX3 is the boss of this series. This is the 'Vice City' of SSX. The one which inexplicably gets the most fan-love, despite not being the best.
SSX3 is one of my favorite videogames ever. Liked it more than SSX Tricky.
Great Review!
SSX Tricky is one of my favorites gamecube games.
I still have the game today.
Things just got Tricky
Picked this up on the cheap having never got into any of the Tony Hawks and other trick-based games (though I did love Jet Set Radio on the DC).
And I absolutely loved it. It is big, bold, loud and completely OTT but carried off so well, its hard not to be drawn in and try to pull off more and more tricks.
I spent far too many hours on this game... loved it.
I didn't play it that much, but my brother played it death mind you.
I could never get into Snowboarding games. Tried the SSX franchise, too. Just didn't do it for me.
I agree that SSX3 is probably the better game, but i had more fun with this one. I was actually just recently thinking of buying this again (long ago traded it in after 100%-ing it at least 5 or 6 times).
One of the best extreme sports games ever crafted!
Great review Peter!
I liked Snowboarding 1080º on the N64, but i didn't liked that it was kinda short. I didn't knew of this game until now. I'm off to ML now...
Ugh! SSX is terrible. 1080 Avalache was much better game. Couldn't stand the terrible physics of this franchise.
@TheDarkness - SSX, especially SSX Tricky, isn't about the physics. It's about doing ridiculous tricks that are pretty much impossible in real life.
I love this game so much. I miss it; I used to play it all the time.
i wouldnt say impossible it just havent been done or perfected yet or people dont have the guts to
I saw this game at goodwill yesterday for $4, I got Pikmin 2 instead, the collector inside me couldn't resist!
Love the music lol
My brother and cousins were CRAZY about this game back then on Gamecube. Eddie seemed to be their favorite.
@14, the last thing I ever plan to do is do handstands on my board of a ramp and stick the landing.
I LOVE THIS GAME!!! I have every SSX game there is but I just really want Marisol back from SSX Tricky and I think EA Sports should bring her into SSX Deadly Descents. Besides she and Maya (from SSX Blur) were probably the only hispanic girls in the entire series!
Cool, but i'd rather grab SSX3. Wanna play as Weegee.
Also in SSX on Tour for the GameCube Mario, Luigi and Peach were playable and I'd wish EA Sports would ask Nintendo permission to use their characters. My choices would be Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Daisy, Toad and/or Toadette, Rosalina and/or White Mage (from Mario Sports Mix even though it's a FF character). These are too many though.
Awesome game. It's the one game in the series that I have the most history with and also the only one I have on the Gamecube.
I have the rest of the series on PS2.
man i forgot about this game...played this on a friend's GC in highschool and it was awesome! Totally not my genre as well which made it even more impressive. It'd be like me playing a football (American) videogame and not wanting to rip of my hands and shove them into my eyes 3 minutes in. Not that Soccer (Yerpball) videogames are much better...
That hasn't happened yet.
there needs to be an SSX game on the 3DS. NOW.
also, the slowdown that i encountered on the gamecube version of ssx tricky was a massive disappointment.
I still hail this as the best sports game to date. As SSX went on, they toned down the over the top nature, which resulted in lesser products like SSX3, On Tour, and Blur.
The reason? The love EA put into the series faded after Tricky, since it really is perfection.
Is Tricky better than On Tour? I have On Tour because appears Mario.
I fondly remember playing the PS2 version of this game when I was 6 or 7-ish. Good times.
@27 So much better. It doesn't have Mario in it, but it doesn't need any special content because it's simply flawless.
I bought this game again a few months back. The case smells of cigarettes but it was worth it.
Great game but 1080 Avalance is better
This generation could really use some more snowboard games. The new SSX game looks pretty cool but we could use another Tricky, another 1080, and of course, another Snowboard Kids!
this makes me wish for gamecube games on wii u virtual console!
I remember getting this game back in summer of 2002 and playing the hell out of it. Great fun, and good review - especially the intro!
I honestly prefer the individual courses in tricky to the Big Mountain approach of the latter games. I will concede that the actual snowboarding mechanics and whatnot were improved in later games, but they did lose a lot of the quirkiness that made fall in love with the series through Tricky.
also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieRzD-JIKnE
i loved the entire series from the graphics and game play to the hollywood voice characters this was a great game cant wait for DEADLY DESCENT to come out
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