SSX is coming out for 360 and PS3. I am so excite.
I did buy
SSX, since I was a big fan of
SSX3 on the PS2 (me an everyone else who played it).
They did good. Damn fine reboot. I'm not crazy about the amount of bottomless pits, and I miss the long 25-minute run you could do all the way down the three linked peaks like you could do in
SSX3... but it controls well, and riding down the slopes is as exhilarating as ever.
EDIT: Hey, while I'm at it, it occurs to me that I've actually bought several other games recently, and pre-ordered a couple more. May as well mention those games, too.
First, I finally broke down and bought
Twisted Metal, the reboot of the series that started with the PS1 launch game of same name.
I was initially turned off by the fact that 1) a lot of reviewers said the single-player campaign sucked, and 2) watching the videos, there seemed to be a distinct lack of real physics, as ever.
After playing for a while, neither of these aspects is actually that bad. Some of the story modes can be a bit gimmicky, like the races, but I think it actually does add a bit of interest. I was also a bit annoyed that Warthog could only be unlocked by getting all gold medals on all story missions on highest difficulty. But I actually just managed to do this tonight... not so bad when you use the Juggernaut vehicle and apply yourself a bit.
As for the physics... yeah, they're kinda wacky, and most of the vehicles handle like bathtubs, making using the "tight turn" a necessity. But you get used to it after a few hours of play.
Only other disappointing thing is that there aren't the plethora of characters anymore. There are just as many vehicles, but now any driver can get in any vehicle. What this means is that there are only three characters with endings where Calypso grants their wish. The F'd up character endings were a great part of the first game, so it's too bad there are only three of them. At least they were all good ones.
But as for the gameplay overall, it's exactly what you'd expect of a
Twisted Metal game. You drive around picking up weapons and charging your special attacks, and then unload on some hapless enemy, pausing only to get health pick-ups when you're near death.
There have been a number of interface improvements. The mini-map is much improved over previous games, and the weapons display at the bottom of the screen very clearly shows all of the weapons you have on you. The special commands, like shield, freeze missile, and mine, no longer require arcane button combinations, but are instead mapped to single presses of the digital pad, and clearly labeled.
There are also some interesting new gameplay additions: killing an opponent will see its drivers leap out of the car in flames, and running the drivers over will count as a "mercy kill," granting either a bit of health or a random weapon... just a little extra incentive to finish people off. Also, for most matches in the story mode, you can pick three different vehicles per match (or three copies of the same vehicle, if you prefer), and then drive into the level's garage mid-match to switch, either because your health is low or because you just want to try a new approach. Also, almost all vehicles have two special attacks rather the one, giving them a bit more flexibility.
Overall, I'd say this is a worthy successor to the original games. I haven't been disappointed.
I also bought the new UFC game,
UFC Undisputed 3. It's an improvement over the last game in every way. Three improvements especially stick out:
1) Submissions aren't broken anymore. In the previous game submissions were just plain old annoying, since at higher levels the computer's submissions were basically impossible to escape, and always worked. Even when player friends, whether they worked or not seemed kinda random, and the only thing you do to stop them was rotate the right stick really fast. But in this game, submissions are decided via a minigame that has the submitting player trying to overlap his opponent's color with his own. It works really really well, so now submissions are actually fun both to attack with and defend against.
2) They've added a Pride ring, Pride rules, and a number of Pride fighters. In fact, the roster is larger than ever, and includes a number of great old-school fighters like Royce Gracie, Dan Severn, Mark Coleman, Don Frye, and Gary Goodridge, just to name a few.
3) Career mode is much more streamlined and functional than in the previous iteration.
Other than that, it's the same great game as before. Any UFC fan will love it.
I've also preordered
Tales of Graces f (March 13) and
Armored Core 5 (March 20). The former is a JRPG in the
Tales series of game, which I'm a big fan of, and the latter is the latest mech combat game from developer From Software, who were most recently responsible for
Dark Souls. I've been an
Armored Core fan since the first game came out for the PS1 back in 1997, and I'm hopeful that this will be another great entry in a series that's more than 15 games long now.
