BitSnark

A few months ago, EA announced a new SSX title and fans immediately had visions of colourful, vibrant stunt courses and larger than life characters carving smoothly through the powder en route to high-flying, body bending tricks.

What we got though, at least on the evidence of the initial gameplay trailer, was a game that looked like it was torn out of the ‘Snow Level’ from Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Eyes blinked in disbelief as we were presented with an overly pretentious and po-faced abomination of SSX. Gone were the fun loving characters and imaginatively extravagant courses, instead replaced with dreary, bleak mountain peaks, a faceless boarder and a Michael Bay esque voice over that told us in a cringeworthy dramatic tone “It’s you, against the mountain.”

It looked like shit to be honest and any excitement that existed concerning a new SSX title evaporated pretty fucking quickly.

Thankfully though, somebody in EA must have thought the same thing as today EA have confirmed that not only will the game will lose it’s ‘Deadly Descents’ subtitle, but they have also released concept art showing OTT stunts being done over the Great Wall of China and other outlandish course designs and have made the point that the cack-sounding Deadly Descents mode, is just one of three gameplay modes.

Reassuringly, Creative Director Todd Batty had this to say regarding the forthcoming title:

“Our core statement from day one has been, ‘survive it, race it, trick it.’ And in that, we have designed three major types of gameplay. One being Deadly Descent, which is all about survival gameplay. It’s a new addition to the franchise.

“… We wanted to make sure we hit the over-the-top arcadey gameplay in all of these different gameplay modes. We decided to lead with the new Deadly Descent gameplay in that trailer, but all of the classic SSX style will be there, too.”

So they’ve dropped the title, reinstated the fun and gotten rid of the Call Of Duty stink then.

Well, it’s certainly back on my radar but I can’t say that the Deadly Descents mode still does anything for me; which is fine seeing as it is no longer the main focus of the game anymore.

The new SSX title is due to arrive on 360 and PS3 platforms at the end of the year.