I think we neglected to post the full "Race It!" and "Trick It!" videos released about a week ago... Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
Also... what did everyone think about the avalanche mode? I really wasn't expecting the view change and my instant reaction to the reverse controls was "bad idea", but now I'm thinking with a bit of practice it could be pretty good. My main concern is whether or not it feels like a minigame that's simply been thrown in to distract players from the "main" game occasionally. I want it to feel like a complete mode in its own right rather than something I'll only do once for the medal.
Avalanches were done well in 1080 Avalanche, which I liked a lot more than most people it seems. But there the perspective didn't change. You could still feel the avalanche coming at your back, and see it when it was close, and it increased the tension. I thought they were fun.
I kinda wish (and still hope) they'll include avalanches with the regular perspective on some tracks. I really like how it uses the physics engine though, you can see the avalanche taking it's own route around the rocks rather than being a simple "white wall of death" that ignores everything in its path.
I'm hearing nasty rumors that not only doesn't this game have true live online (rather more like chasing ghosts), but also it doesn't even have local split screen. If it doesn't have local splitscreen in particular, that's a huge loss IMHO. I'd still get it eventually, but would likely cancel my pre-order and wait for it to drop to $20. So disappointing if true. Anyone know for sure? EDIT: and I found it: http://thegamingliberty.com/index.php/2011/10/24/tgl-interview-ssxs-lead-designer-todd-batty/ What's comical is he talks about how SSX and Tony Hawk were the "party games" before Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Well, so much for that idea. What a huge, huge let down. What were they thinking?
Yeah, it's been known for a while there will be no splitscreen. It's a shame, but a good 90% of my entertainment was single player anyway, so I'm confident the other 10% can be taken up by online multiplayer in my case. I think people are getting confused by the multiplayer modes though, one of the developers clearly stated that while the asynchronous events are all against ghosts (no other way of doing that really), you can still play simultaneously with your friends and enjoy full contact racing/tricking. They've only mentioned async modes in the promo videos which seems to be why people are worried there's no contact, but if that developer was telling the truth, it's still there.
I hope it does at least have live online, but you would think in that two part online play video that they would have at least mentioned it if it was there. It doesn't make any sense that they wouldn't if it had it, and they didn't mention it. Very strange if it does in fact have live online.
They've confirmed that you're able to start an event and sit in the helicopter until your friends arrive, then all drop at once. They didn't specify about the contact though. Also, it's been confirmed you can disable the "Tricky" music that plays when you go into tricky mode. Three options: 1) Tricky music starts then fades out. 2) Tricky music plays for as long as you remain in tricky mode and 3) No tricky music.
The SSX Ubercast did a great interview with Todd Batty earlier today. I've summed up the most interesting points: DEMO ON TUESDAY (Wednesday for EU PSN)! Includes both tutorials, a race event, a trick event, RiderNet enabled, the character is Zoe with Mac unlockable if you refer a friend. There are 72 types of air grab in total, including tweaks but not including signature ubers. There are also 18 different grabs while grinding. The amount of auto correct in regards to your character turning him/herself the right way up depends on the stats and level of your board. If you want good ground speed and flip speed you'll find that righting yourself will be a much tougher job. In response to the accusations of the game looking too easy (i.e. letting you cancel out of tricks to make a landing), Batty stated that the challenge is very much still there, it's just more about controlling the momentum and mastering the physics engine than it is landing tricks, thus achieving that position many games strive for: Easy to learn, hard to master. The reward for leveling up is a new set of offers in the store. For example, reaching level 5 unlocks a new range of level five boards and equipment, all with higher stats. Levels 1-4 should be quick to accomplish so as not to deter weaker players away from the game, but 5-10 can take a very long time. Regarding purchasing credit packs (with real money): You gain an exorbitant amount of credits just for placing bronze in SSX, while characters and drops are all cheap to unlock, meaning for the majority of players, spending real money won't be at all mandatory. The option to purchase credits is there for the few players who want to "fast forward" their experience and unlock everything without really playing, or for collectors who are determined to unlock every single item, board, piece of artwork, etc. in the game, as there's a huge amount of content there if you want it. The core experience is obviously completely free, and it's entirely possible to unlock everything without spending any money whatsoever. Some of Batty's own stats after 50-60 hours of play on his profile were: 0/9 Deadly Descents completed, medals on 19/153 drops and 4 global events played. The game's initial tutorial involves "skyboarding"; jumping out of a helicopter at around 30,000 feet in order to give the player a good 1-2 minutes of air time to get the feel for the tricks. Diveboming in a wingsuit can take you over 300 km/h, on the ground you have a potential max speed of around 250-270. All of the uber tricks (and all regular tricks) can be held infinitely and the animations will loop. The "Uber Mondays" videos which showcase the tricks are all done with no rotation and without holding the trick, so they should look even more spectacular when you perform them yourself. There are no actual half pipe tracks in the game, but there are areas where you can use the environment as a natural, almost accidental half pipe. That said, using it for too long (1-3 jumps) will kill your "flow" and your multiplier will drop. You can hit the flares lined along the track and knock them down the mountain. Pretty lighting effects! This also counts as a trick called 'Pieces of Flare' which can be used to keep your combo alive and earn more boost. Restarting a track from any point takes about 3-4 seconds. A huge improvement over previous games. Geotags work thusly: They are obtained via rewards throughout the career mode and also available to buy in the in-game store. Each geotag has a specific value, i.e. 50,000 credits. When you place a geotag in the world, other players will be notified and it will expire in eactly 24 hours. If another player collects it almost instantly, he will be rewarded say, 49,900 credits and you will be rewarded the remaining 100. If he collects it after 12 hours, you both get 25,000 credits. If he collects it with one minute remaining, he is rewarded 100 credits and you get the remaining 49,900. As such, the key to successful placement is in finding the most extreme, out of the way area possible and dropping it at the peak of a huge jump, and the key to collecting geotags is to do it quickly! The collectable snowflakes scattered throughout the game are essentially just offline geotags, placed by the dev team. There are 599 in total, one of which is worth 1,000,000 credits! Hint: It's in the Rockies. Don't worry though, there's no trophy/achievement for collecting them all, it was considered to be too stressful a task. The big one: There is NO "real" simultaneous multiplayer mode. The team decided the main draw of the entire SSX series were the Trick It modes, which don't really require simultanous players. You can still watch other player's ghosts while you play, but without the stress of someone knocking you off your board and killing your combo. The Race It mode took a less important position and as such follows the same basic structure. On the bright side, it also means there are absolutely no latency issues in the game whatsoever. You can be sharing a mountain with 60-80 ghost players at a time without experiencing even the slightest amount of lag. The reason for the inverted commas over "real" in the previous paragraph is because during any global event, there will constantly be other players jumping from the helicopter and racing down the mountain. This means that when you enter, there are always people ready for you to race against. You may not jump at exactly the same second, but it gives you people to beat in real time, as well as the overall leaderboard to place on. The upside to this is you get multiple chances to race the mountian and win the event (the average event lasts 20 minutes, but they range from 10 minutes to 7 days) and restarting if you mess up isn't an problem. The downside to this is there's no specific way to start at the exact same time as your friends, but it is possible with a little coordination and a custom event. Joining friends in realtime events is also possible via the RiderNet wall and pop up notifications which let you leap into the same event from anywhere in the game. There is currently no voice chat implemented on the PS3 version due to console limitations. There are two events for every type of Deadly Descent, the warmup and the main event. The World Tour mode is approximately 12 hours long, however it is not the main meat of the game, that title goes to Explore mode. There are 256 colour combinations of clothing for every character, and also glowing versions of every set, resulting in a total of 512 sets of clothing each. These can then be further customized with perks (approx 15 in total) such as big head, big hands, extra speed and extra boost. As you level up you unlock more slots including a second gear slot (equip two items!), second mod slot and second geotag slot. 'Survive It' events are seperate from Deadly Descents, expect up to 40-50 of those. There is no way to watch or save replays other than using the rewind feature. The majority of user-designed boards (as seen on the SSX Facebook page) are in the game. Most of the ones that were ommited did not pass ESRB ratings or featured licensed imagery. There will be no limited or collector's edition in the US. The UK will see a limited edition containing all of the pre-order content bundled together. Most of the SSX dev team will be playing online on the 360 version (with Todd currently considering buying a PS3 so that he can play on both). The shockwave effect cannot be disabled, however there is no pause or delay, it doesn't occur as often as shown in old videos and after a while you'll be so accustomed to it you'll barely notice. Every track in the game has multiple lighting conditions (day/night and various times in between) which are dependent on the drop you take. Mods are one-time use, but restarting a drop won't use up the mod.
Wait, so the game has downgraded the racing part of the game? I'm not really into the trick stuff except as it related to giving a boost in the racing portions. Plus now we're back to it not having real live online. I'm so confused and getting disappointed again.
There's still just as much racing in terms of tracks and events, it was just decided that the main reason people played the series was for the tricks. This video should give you an idea of what online multiplayer will be like: Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
Thanks for that video. I hadn't seen that one before. Not truly live racing, but it does look fun anyway.
I've been playing it the past 3 hours, love it It's a little tougher than it looks in the videos, which is a good thing... when you're the one playing it somehow feels twice as fast and your reaction speeds are gonna need some serious sharpening if you're gonna compete with the pros. It's not without its flaws though, the graphics aren't perfect, the textures are a little lower than I hoped for, especially in the cutscenes with the helicopter which you get to see pretty close-up. Not that it matters when you're bombing down a mountain at over 200 km/h though. It's certainly not going to mute my enjoyment and after all, this is technically a low budget game for EA... we had to expect it to show in a few little places. Still a strong contender for one of my favourite games ever though, it's feeling better than SSX3 which automatically puts it right up there among the best.
The score mechanics in this game are far more complicated than I ever gave them credit for. It adds some serious tactical decisions in when going for the records. If anyone's interested, my best time on JT2 is 2:00.33 and my best score on Bulldog is 19,366,XXX.
I played the demo earlier. It seems like a great game for fans of SSX, but I have realised that the game isn't for me. I found it too tricky. And by tricky I mean both difficult and too trick-oriented for my liking. I suck at any game that requires quick combinations of button presses, I just end up mashing all the buttons and hoping for the best. I can totally see the appeal of these sorts of games, but I just can't get along with them.
I'm not good at quick button combos either, but I really enjoyed SSX Tricky anyway. I only like the racing, and doing tricks just to get a boost. I'm not a fan of tricks = points modes. Anyway, I'm hoping this will be similarly fun. I have the demo downloaded, but haven't had a chance to try it yet. Hopefully tonight.
I've upped my score to 25 million. I've been really active on merqurycity.com lately (the #1 SSX fansite) and 25 mil seems to be regarded as a reasonably good score... but of course there is one guy that keeps blowing everyone away and just posted a video of himself getting 47 million: Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
