| Jan Hyde 2005-10-31, 7:35 pm |
| Doug Jacobs <djacobs@shell.rawbw.com>'s wild thoughts were
released on Fri, 28 Oct 2005 23:28:24 -0000 bearing the
following fruit:
quote:
>I noticed that my local Frys had sold out of SSX: On Tour last week, so
>obviously it's been selling.
>
>But why no posts?
>
>Too busy playing other games? (yeah, I know how that goes)
>
>Hate EA and stopped buying their titles?
>
>Fell out of love with SSX3, and haven't looked back? (basically describes
>me - I played SSX3 long enough to unlock the 3rd peak and to realize that
>the characters were all identical, basically)
>
>Is anyone playing this game?
I'm playing at the moment.
It returns to the older method of boards affecting your
skills (speed etc) rather than character development.
There are some bonuses you can buy to help your character
but from those I've bought so far, they are not worth it.
You can buy clothing but the range is reduced from that of
SSX3 and consists mostly of a few items in different
colours.
You can customise your characters hair and facial hair,
height and weight but this is nothing to write home about.
The game starts out so easy it's a joke.
The game does start to get harder though. Although it seems
that if one of the computer characters gets more the 100m
ahead then you've got no chance of ever catching them as
they soon increase this to 200m then 300m, on the other
hand, if I get ahead of them early on it seems like I'll
stay ahead without any problems. So it never feels like a
race to me, it's more a case of don't fall over and you'll
win, although this might change later on...
The game feels a lot faster but maybe this is due to the
blurring of the screen when your traveling at speed which I
find annoying because it makes it impossible to spot
shortcuts (setting it to wide screen doesn't seem to make
any difference that I could see either).
Instead of 3 heats in which you must come in the top 3 of
each, you'll go directly to the final if you qualify in the
first heat which is a nice time saver. However, a lot of
events are 'take your best time out x runs' which is means
doing the same course over again which is just plain boring.
Some of the other races take 7-8 mins which is too long
given that you know who's going to win after 1 or 2 mins (by
which time you or the AI player will have a huge lead)
Trick events, are (like the races) very easy to get 1st
place but can be very difficult to beat the course record.
There is a half pipe with metal arches that will constantly
ruin that huge combo bonus you've spent an age building
(you'll see what I mean on this), tricks used to be my
favorite event but I just don't enjoy them in this version,
perhaps it's the course design I'm not really sure, it's
just not enjoyable. Again, maybe this will change with a
better board and getting to know the tracks better, time
will tell.
I really like the slow motion monster tricks (although I
still can't figure out how to tweak them) but they are not a
good or as varied as SSX3.
They seem to have made an effort to reduce the advantage you
got by pressing select to reset your boarder and you almost
always start from the same position rather than a little way
ahead. This is frustrating as you can end up having to edge
your way up a slope so it's usually better to use hit square
to recover, although this is sometimes impossible as there
are several places where you can get stuck in the scenery.
You can still collect cash $500-$2000 but given the cost of
things it hardly worth the bother IMO, winning races is a
better method of making money.
It feels like there are less tracks but they've made each
one bigger, miss the bridge or fall down a ravine and it
will always lead to an alternate route rather than resetting
you back on the course.
Regardless of weather there are more or less tracks you
can't help feel like your going down the same track over and
over.
You can now play on skis too, which seemed more difficult to
me, so I've gone back to boards for now.
That's all I can think of right now.
All in all you can't help but feel a little disappointed by
it without really knowing why.
Unless you must have it, I'd wait until the price drops.
Jan Hyde (VB MVP)
--
Ego Trip: Stumbling over your own feat. (Stan Kegel)
[Abolish the TV Licence - http://www.tvlicensing.biz/]
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