PAX Makes My Dreams Come True With An SSX Booth

Lindsey and I are complete screaming fan girls for the SSX brand.  So when I walked into the PAX showroom to see a giant display for the latest addition to the game, it was like hearing the voice of God and the shining light of angels.  Not only did they have reps to discuss the game, they had little SSX comic books (Lindsey, one is coming to you!), and plenty of monitors on which to play the game.  Here is the break down.

Much to my delight, the trails are very open with a lot of different paths to carve.  It is a very open world with mountains to conquer just like SSX3.  A lot of the same characters will be returning.  Elise was highlighted at the booth with a cosplay booth babe and her on the cover of most of the promotional material.  My favorite character was Allegra and when I asked about her I received a sad response.  They said she is definitely not going to be in the game, but weakly hinted that she might be involved in one way or another.  Allegra might return as downloadable content or unlockable artwork.

There will be extensive multiplayer broken down into three pillars; Trick It, Race It, and Survive It.  Blue ghost lines will appear on the track as you run it.  Whichever friend has the highest score or the best time on a run will have their path lightly illuminated on your run.  When playing single player, your own best run will have a ghost path.  The rep at the booth made sure to let me know that lobbies will probably be able to host dozens of players at the same time like an actual mountain.  I've not read much to corroborate that, but I hope he was right.

Remember that comment about blurry, poorly lit photos?  Not a joke, kids.

Lastly, the controls are not nearly as intuitive as the controls have been in previous games.  Its not hard to walk up to the game and play.  But grinding and executing elaborate tricks was tough to figure out.  The rep told me that the controls have been smoothed out considerably since then and will be more so when the game comes out.  The demo I played was some pre-alpha software so it was far from ready for release.

With all that, the game is still going to be amazing.  I had so much fun and I am confident that it will live up to the sky-high expectations that Lindsey and I have for the series.