SSX Blur...anyone?

[blueswitch]

This game got put on shelves today...anyone have or thinking of getting it? I'm seriously considering it since I loved SSX 3, thought SSX On Tour was sub par with the exception of skiers being added, and Blur is suppose to be more like SSX 3. My Rayman hasn't been played since I beat it and since my roomate doesn't ever want to play multi-player...I thinking about trading it in towards Blur.

So far Game trailers gave it a decent score mostly praising it's controls and presentation, gamespot bashed it for it's controls, although I find gamespot is excessively harsh on Wii games.

[tenchi86]

Have not played it myself but defiantly looks good enough to at least be a rent. As for Gamespot I have never trusted them, they let their biased show through way to much to the point of them being owned by Microsoft would not surprise me.

[Oni]

I want this game more than my next five minutes of oxygen.

That about sums it up, I think.

[tenchi86]

Heres a personal review on Kotaku, which many times I prefer over the big time sites. http://kotaku.com/gaming/original/ssx-blur-impressions-240353.php He had a few problems with the controls but in the end says its a buy.

[rainless]

Have not played it myself but defiantly looks good enough to at least be a rent. As for Gamespot I have never trusted them, they let their biased show through way to much to the point of them being owned by Microsoft would not surprise me.

Heh... sounds more like IGN to me... who's ass is up for rent to the highest bidder. From Activision to Burger King... to MOUNTAIN DEW. I guess it's just hard to right bad reviews when your entire website is covered in a game's theme...

Then again it hasn't seemed to stop Gamespot... (RE: Ghost Rider) so you have to at least give them credit for that.

[blueswitch]

Well I bought it tonight, so after I spend a little bit more time on it tomorrow I can tell you guys what I think. Controls take some getting used to, part of it is just breaking old habits from other SSX games.

[Burdman27911]

I played for an hour last night and again tonight with a friend (I own the game). The controls are really not that easy to pick up and I find myself getting frustrated way too easily... but I know there is potential in it, and from reading reviews I know it is good. It's just not something you can pick up and immediately pwn with.

On another note, it does look good graphically and I've been enjoying myself for the most part, I just have a really hard time with the timed races (slow character).

I've got to run some errands right, but if you want some more impressions I can always make a little more time for SSX Blur. :beer:

[blueswitch]

Well after spending some time with it here are my impressions. Note that I have played SSX3 and On Tour quite a lot and tricky some all on xbox.

Presentation
The presentation is great and stylized like SSX should be. It feels a lot more like SSX 3 which in my opinion was the best. You have 3 peaks, you free ride from course to course to enter events but you can also warp VIA a map in options. You pick a pre-existing character to customize, compared to On Tours shallow character creation options I prefer this.

Gameplay
This is where the rubber hits the road. As it's been pointed out this isn't like a past SSX where you pick up the controls, mash on it and start flipping and twisting and pulling compounded uber tricks. You tilt the nunchuck left and right to carve and you can use the thumbstick in addition if you need to lay a carve down. I find myself kind of using both at the same time. I think this works well...it's hard to get used to at first and when you get bouncing around you want to just use the thumbstick, but once you get used to it, it brings alot of fun back into just cruising the mountain.
Tricks are done by flipping the nunchuck up to jump and then in the air flip the remote up/down to flip, side to side to spin. Grabs are done by holding the Z button and tilting the nunchuck left right up down. One big thing to know is that you have to start your spin/flip before you do a grab. Otherwise you'll just do a grab. It makes sense but until you realize it it can be frustrating. Personally I think grabs should have just been stick movements because you find yourself having to flip the nunchuck, move the wiimote, then go back to tilting the nunchuck. It's alot of nunchuck work considering Z is also boost. You break out of a trick by hitting A, then you can pull another trick or prepare for landing. The issue I have noticed is when you hit A...and in the motion of bringing the remote back to center...you start a new spin/flip and land on your head....you have to be concious to break the trick and leave the remote still until you land. Tricks feel pretty satisfying, pulling the remote up and watching your character do back flips is cool. Ubers are done by drawing various signs which can involve both hands. Ubers are not easy to do. I think there is a trick to just knowing how the game reads the motions because I am getting better but still I'm about 1/10 tries. To me it seems like it's using the accelerometers to track the traces instead of the IR pointer, even on just the wiimote traces. You have better luck making larger smooth motions not wrist flicks. So get your arms flailing like a wii-geek. I am finding this aspect frustrating...I'm getting better and when you pull one off your like oh sweeeeet...but all around the controls take practice, especially ubers.

Graphics
Wii owners this game looks good, period. It isn't some gamecube version with motion controls coded in. It's very stylized and it works well. I compared this to SSX on tour on my xbox running monster component cables...The Wii's on factory cables and it looks a good deal better. Snow looks better, there's more of it being thrown around...the snow in the air doesn't look so much like a flat animated texture. Compared to the screen shots that have been posted of this game, it doesn't look nearly that jaggy running, in fact the only thing I notice it on are skier poles. The effects look great, the translucent trails off skies when your pulling tricks are longer and look very smooth. Sparks, lens flares, when you get grooving your character has these neon translucent music notes that come out of their headphones and they come off in ribbons of sheet music...looks very cool. Your character gets covered in snow when you eat it and it slowly wears off of them. Sense of speed is great, it has great blurring effects when you turbo. Good to see Wii eye candy step up a notch.

Audio
I really liked SSX 3's sound track, lots of good signed artists. SSX On Tour had the cool interactive music that stalled out when you did tricks, but it was a bad sound track. In blur they signed a DJ to do all the original mixes, so it's very house music/trance music like which works really well with the visuals. The theme is definatly groove/flow feeling which goes with the visuals great. Cool thing is as you do better or worse the music will mix to reflect it. You start pulling huge tricks and turboing down the hill and all the sudden layers of drums start coming in and the music picks up. You bail and the music cuts out like someone pulled the plug on a record player. You pull an uber and it goes to this ambient/trance sound and as soon as you land kicks right back into the music. It's done very well.

Over all I'd say this is a good purchase...but if your expecting to pick up the controls and kill the game...you won't....but that doesn't make it bad...there's a few things I thought they could do better in the control department, but in the end, everything is working.

[Burdman27911]

GREAT summary blueswitch! I'm still in the "getting used to it" stage of things, the game is really growing on me and I wish I could spend some more time getting comfortable with the controls. The weekend is coming up, so that should help a bit.

What do you think about the "DJ" in the free run mode (when you cruise the peaks)? I think he'll soon get on my nerves, but at least he isn't around on the slopes.

[blueswitch]

I actually like the DJ...especially since he talks over load screens, better than staring at a load screen. But he was in SSX3, I know you could turn him off in 3. I'm still getting used to the controls too...I'm just trying to pass the first slalom to get to peak 2...and it;'s frustrating....they expect you to make the gates but they get you bouncing so much there's just no way I can get more than just over half. One thing I've also noticed is is seems there's no way to turn your character in the air (not spin) to line yourself up for laying down a turn when you land.

[Burdman27911]

Yeah, the landing thing is a little annoying, but I can live with it. For the slalom in the second tourny, take it slowly right before that first drop off and cut right as you go around the flag before the drop. It's not too easy, but I just did that run in 1:01 without missing any flags. I'm feeling a little better about the controls now. Also, if you have trouble with getting uber tricks, just spend some time in a halfpipe on free ride. I'm probably hitting them 75%+ of the time, but that's only for 3 different uber tricks.

PS - Oni, hope you get blur soon.

[Janus67]

prolly going to pick it up this weekend if I get outbid on a opty 165 on ebay for $100 :-/

[Oni]

The DJ they signed is Junkie XL. He does really good stuff, and I'm happy to hear that he did a good job on this game.

I've really been looking forward to this title for quite a while now. I'm glad to hear that it has come off as good as I was hoping it would.

Good review, Blueswitch. Thanks!

[blueswitch]

So I discovered that less than perfect controls dealing with motion sensing on Wii can lead to making you irate. I played the 3rd tournament on peak 1 for an hour straight with out beaitng it. Alot of times getting screwed because either A. a trick would get screwed up because I would stay stop the trick and a slight motion would cause another to start making me eat it...or two even though I would be twisting the nunchuck on it;s side with the joystick too it wouldn;t sense it properly and my character wouldn;t turn as hard as they should and I'd start pinballing between trees and loose the race. I got mad enough to throw my wii mote at the couch which should be soft...but it hit the arm and I think I broke it.....didn't have time to look into it since I had to catch a flight like literally 15mins after this happend. I think not having perfect sensing on controls can lead to some of the most frustrating gameplay in existence.

[n0aH]

Ill rent this and see how it is... dont think this is a buy due to the lack of perfect controls

[Burdman27911]

So I discovered that less than perfect controls dealing with motion sensing on Wii can lead to making you irate.Yep, been there. I totally have a love-hate relationship with this game. It's very picky with the way you control it. Everything must be so precise and thought out, it's crazy. I'm learning a lot about how easily I can still get frustrated, I thought I grew up past those days, but apparently not. Anyway, I do enjoy the game, but there are those moments when I just have to stop what I'm doing and come back to the game later.

Best of luck with the gaming blue. Try to quit before you get to the point where you throw things :beer:


PS - n0aH, Don't judge the game first when you rent it. Give it a while for you to pick it up and learn the new style. It's like the first time I tried to play an FPS on a console... actually, I think this is harder than that. I do think these are good controls, but they are nothing like we're used to.

[Oni]

I just rented this game, and I must say that I am very impressed. The whole game has a wonderful polish to it. It's very nice and clean, and there are lots of little things that make it stand out. For example, when you crash, the music stops until you start moving again. Also, when you crash the snow sticks to your character and gradually melts away. The trick trails add a nice touch, and so do the various lens flares and whatnot. They all scream polish.

The game is very pretty looking, and I'm glad for that. There is no notable slowdown during gameplay, and the camera seems to play nice.

The controls are very very tight, almost to a fault. Things like carving an edge and doing basic tricks are second nature after playing the game for about 10 minutes or so (I don't even realize that I'm making the motions for carving or jumping etc) but the one spot it should be more forgiving is the uber tricks. Uber tricks are uber hard to pull off in this game! It took me about 30 minutes of the Ubertricks training mode to even get down the most basic (Jerk Chicken Air), and sometimes, the trick you think you're pulling off is not the trick the rider will perform (I've done the movements for Cowbell and it's come up as Jerk Chicken, etc). I'm sure with more practice I'll get the nuances down, but for now it's a little frustrating.

Over all, I like the game, and I will most definitely continue practicing. It is not a game you just pick up and play, however. There is a learning curve, and sometimes, it can be very steep.

[Springbok]

I played this for about 5-10 minutes during my lunch break at a local GameStop, I was pretty awful but I cracked up trying to figure out what movements did what. The only tutorial I did was the rail slide, and I was expecting to see a Tony Hawk style balance bar above my character's head, but the animations were so good that you could tell when you were tilting too far one way. Great presentation, I might rent it to get some more time with it...or take a longer lunch break tomorrow :D

[Oni]

Another thing. The music in this game is absolutely killer! I've been looking for a soundtrack but have not been able to find one yet. I'll have to keep looking.

Edit: Now that I'm getting used to it, the Uber tricks aren't all that tricky to pull off anymore. I'm hitting them about 80% of the time now. It's all about timing. Once you get that down pat you'll be pulling Ubers in no time!

What characters is everybody using? I've been sticking with Elise and Maya for two reasons: 1) they are Canadian, and you've gotta support the Canadian talent and 2) Women have a lower center of gravity, and make better balanced boarders ;)

I have had a few problems. My Wii has locked up twice with this game. Perhaps a patch is in order, EA Montreal?

[blueswitch]

anyone notice that on load screens and menus where they have the snow flakes falling and you can move the cursor to push the falling snow flakes around.

[Oni]

Yeah, I did. That's a neat little extra.

Despite all the negatives regarding EA and their games, I think that they really came through w/ SSX Blur. I'm going to buy it as soon as funds allow.