Title SSX Blur Date 03.21.2006 Genre Sports Platform Wii Developer EA Big Publisher Electronic Arts

Whether you love EA or hate EA, their strong support of Nintendo's latest console can only mean good things for Wii owners in years to come. Worn out and overused franchises from last generation now have the potential to be revitalized and made "new" again. Until four years and five SSX games later.  Knowing a sequel can't be far off lessens the impact of SSX Blur, but this is still a fun game and a great starting point for the franchise on Wii.

One thing you should understand, though, is that SSX Blur is not your typical SSX. The graphics, style, and music have gone in a different direction, and, of course, the controls are completely redone. But fans of SSX will recognize a few courses from previous games, like SSX 3's Happiness, and what the series has always been about--insane tricks and dangerous mountains--is still intact.

The game starts off with you picking from one of eleven characters and building up their skills by competing in individual events, challenges, and tournaments. Generally, there are three types of events: race, slalom, and slope-style (trick attack). Winning an event doesn't award you money, however, as has been the SSX tradition. Instead, you are given points that go towards opening up new tournaments. And tournaments aid in opening up more mountain peaks and other goodies. But without the money in place, there isn't a resolute system for increasing stats. After each event, you just have to cross your fingers and hope this time you did something to get a stat boost. The game is also very quiet about what it takes to unlock new costumes for your characters (costumes replacing the ability to customize each article of clothing individually).

Despite that SSX Blur feels a little unorganized at times, the game is still very fun and challenging due to the Wii remote and nunchuk. The nunchuk is used primarily for movement, and if you weren't planning to do any tricks, you could ride the whole mountain with just this. The sensitivity and responsiveness of the nunchuk makes carving (by tilting side to side) a natural process and is easy to get into. Similarly, grabs are performed by tilting the nunchuk while airborne. When you add in the remote, however, things start to get complicated. To do a flip, you flick the remote in the desired direction. But it's a bit sporadic, often going for a front flip instead of a spin or spinning when you didn't want to do anything. It definitely takes some getting used to, and gamers who had mastered the original SSX controls will have a very difficult time converting over.

But once you do get the hang of the controls, you'll find pulling off tricks to be more rewarding than ever. This is especially so when you factor in uber tricks. These special tricks require specific gestures with the remote (and sometimes the nunchuk). For instance, you may have to swish the remote to make an invisible Z or draw the remote and nunchuk together to form a heart. Unfortunately, these shapes don't always register, or they register as the wrong shape. You've got to draw a rather large, well-defined Z to actually get the Z, and that's some flailing which could easily embarrass you in the wrong company. While there are 12 uber tricks in total, only a handful are actually manageable, and you may find yourself only being able to do about half of them.

The truly frustrating part about SSX Blur, though, are the slalom challenges. Carving between flags is made nearly impossible, because the flags are positioned too close together to weave around in succession.

Inconvenient bumps are frequently placed right before a flag, too, causing your character to bounce out of control and miss four or five flags in a row. It isn't the fault of the nunchuk but rather the fault of some pretty unforgiving and stiff level design. As such, tournaments that include slalom are to be feared and avoided if at all possible.

On the other hand, race and slope-style events are fine. Races are filled with plenty of shortcuts and boost tokens and now include the option to hurl snowballs at the competition by holding B and shaking the remote. Pelting someone with a snowball right before they go off a jump is highly entertaining. Competing snowboarders are no pushover, either. While Peak 1 is a breeze (probably to help players cope with the new controls), later levels demand that you know the best routes and land every major jump. Nothing is terribly difficult (except for those damn slalom challenges), but you will definitely spend a lot of time at this game if you hope to master every event and challenge and collect the hundreds of tokens lying around in free play.

There is also a two-player mode to help pad the game if building up each character's stats gets old. Split-screen suffers from some slowdown and graphical anomalies (like a blue vortex that periodically appears in the distance) but holds up well enough to be a selling feature. It's not like there are a lot of good simultaneous two-player Wii games out there, anyway. All the race and slope-style levels in the one-player mode make it over unscathed, as well, so there's little reason to complain. Online isn't going to happen just yet, people.

SSX Blur also impresses from a technical standpoint. Don't be fooled by the ugly screenshots on the back of the box. These are the slickest graphics on the system yet, the first step in making the Wii "next-gen," after all. The visuals have a very soft feel and pack a lot of detail, in texture and animation. Blur goes for style over realism, though, which may deter some. The characters look more like kids, now, and the menus are brightly labeled like a TV show from the 70s. Blur also doesn't feature any licensed music. Whoa, wait a minute; this is EA we're talking about! Crazy, I know, because this wholly original soundtrack, consisting of great electronic mixes that dynamically change depending on how well you do, is among the best on Wii.

Final Comments
I do like SSX Blur, but I hesitate to call it a better game than previous SSX outings. While the controls definitely offer a unique challenge and can be very rewarding, sometimes you just want to be lazy and play a relaxing snowboarding game. SSX Blur is not relaxing. It will have you on the edge of your seat, flailing your arms around like an idiot, occasionally cursing about how you can't get an uber trick to work or how the slalom races are unfair. Like most Wii games so far, there's a lot of room for improvement, but I'm still going to recommend this one to fans of extreme sports games. There's plenty to do, carving feels great, and, at the very least, you'll enjoy the music and visuals.

Pros
+ Looks and sounds great
+ Controls offer a unique challenge
+ Carving works very well
+ Decent amount of things to do

Cons
- Slalom will kill you
- Feels a little unorganized

- The trick system can be sporadic

Game Score

B+

Reviewed By: Clark Niellsen