SSX Blur for Nintendo Wii

Take a look at all the board games out there: there's the ever strong Tony Hawk series, the original SSX games, and a few others. But really, the games that have dominated have been SSX and Tony Hawk. They've lasted the generations, they keep getting newer iterations for every system. Why? Primarily because they took the sport question, whether it be snowboarding or skateboarding (which essentially play the same in games), and have made them inaccessible accessible. Both SSX and Tony Hawk gave you the ability to do tons of ridiculous, inhuman moves with ease. Now comes SSX Blur, which makes the inaccessible inaccessible again, and has created a new way to play, for better or for worse.

At first glance, SSX looks just like any other SSX game. You pick you boarder stereotype character, pick your poison, whether it be slaloming, big air, racing, or half piping, or a career. You'll go down the slopes, pulling off tricks, competing in tournaments, and using career for all your unlockables, but once you jump in, you realize you're looking at a horse of an almost entirely different color.

In short, this game is HARD, and it's game that relies so much on its control that if you can't get used to its controls, you won't want this game. If you've never played an SSX game before, you'll actually be in much better shape than the vets of the series, because they have to unlearn almost everything they learned, and start fresh.

The basic controls seem simple enough. You use the analog stick to steer, although for a sharp turn, you tilt the nunchuk, flip the nunchuk up for a jump, use the remote and the A or B button for a spin or a flip, and hold the Z button and move the nunchuk for a grab. That's not so bad is it? The problem comes in the uber tricks.

As you go down the slopes, or in the halfpipes, or whatever, pulling off tricks, you'll fill up your Groove Meter. Once the Groove Meter is full, you're clear to do an Uber Trick. Basically, when you jump, a shape will appear at the bottom of the screen, prompting you to draw that shape with Wii remote. Some tricks use just the remote, such as the backwards Z, and some use both, like the heart. The Uber Tricks are ridiculously hard to pull off, as once you're prepared for one trick, it'll throw another one at you, but once you pull them off, the reward takes away all the frustration you mustered up by just pulling trying to pull it off. If you can't pull of an Uber Trick, you really won't get that far in this game. They are the meat and bones.

Now that I think I've emphasized the Uber Tricks enough, let's get into the game itself. Like I said, I jumped in this thing expecting to breeze through, but ended up having to jump into the tutorials, a move which I recommend to everyone. Never has a tutorial been so necessary. With the sensitivity of the Wii controls, you'll need to even the simplest moves down pat. You'll probably go through at least a few of the tutorials more than once.

Ok, I'm not quite done with Uber Tricks, since I have a suggestion. My fiance and I played this, trying our hardest to pull of that Uber Trick, and finally found a system. Go the Uber Trick tutorial, which is set up in such a way that two players can actually double team, meaning that one can take charge of the nunchuk for steering and the other can take the remote for the Uber Trick. Now just let one person work on mastering steering, and the other tricking, and then switch off. Eventually, you'll both get the hang of both aspects. It worked for me anyway.

Anyway, after control, the next most important thing in Blur is the environment. How are the peaks? Are they varied enough? Challenging enough? Interesting enough? Well, quite frankly, the peaks could all use a little work. Not that there's anything wrong with them, but none have any really truly distinguishing features.

Career mode tries for what the Tony Hawk series did starting with Underground, giving you a somewhat open world to explore. You start off at Peak 1, zipping around, following signs to events. Do good enough in the events on Peak 1, you move on to Peak 2, then Peak 3. Scattered along the peaks are tokens that unlock more insanely difficult Uber Tricks, and of course, a successful career mode unlocks new characters, new tracks, and new boards. The problem with this open world design is that it doesn't translate as well to snowboarding. If you miss a sign, you can't just stop, turn around, and go right back to it. Granted, the instruction manual informs that if me you can't make it to the signs, you're probably not ready to tackle the rest of the game, but I still think there's a better way to do this.

Graphically, the game is good, as in it functions as well as it should, but even on the Wii we could see better, but take heart, this is the first installment on the Wii, and their focus was on the control first. I'm assuming that in the next installments we'll see a little more polish, and some more interesting tracks.

The sound is there. You have your obnoxious, but not overly so, announcer, your characters' catch phrases, and the sounds of your board (or skis) on the snow. The sound effects work-they won't blow you away. The music and voices provide more of a background than anything, and are neither overly distracting nor adrenaline inducing.

The multiplayer supports up to four players for the "Hot Seat," in which everyone competes in the different modes one at a time, or a splitscreen race or slopestyle, seeing who can get the most points. The multiplayer gets a thumbs up, and can be the most fun you'll have in Blur. There's no online play of course, since again, this is the first installment, but maybe next time.

Here's the Deal: I know this has been a bit of a dry review, but we know the formula for these games. There's not much to tell. The formula hasn't deviated. What has deviated is the control. What SSX Blur has done has taken an old series, and put new life into it. How much fun you'll have in this game is directly related to how well you can master the controls. If you give up on them and leave early, which a lot of people are likely to do, you'll be missing out on what is truly a rewarding experience. Blur doesn't show us anything new in the design or modes, but gives us an entirely new, fun way to play. Based on the new immersive control scheme alone, and the potential it will have for later games, this one is getting four stars.

Parent's Note: Nothing offensive here, but younger kids might be a bit daunted by the (yes I'm harping on it again) difficult controls.