SSX Blur review

[vanguardian1]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=143350 Very interesting thread, I'll quote a few comments by Mr. Spinnington, who bought it :

Okay I gave in, quick impressions: omfg this game is fun. When you start playing you're going to fall down a lot --mostly trying to land tricks. Go straight to the tutorials. It took about 10-15 minutes to get a grip on the controls, but that's because I jumped right into quickplay without thinking. I only played for a couple minutes before going into the tutorials and believe me, they tell you a lot. The game's manual is superthin, so most of the learning takes place in the game through experience, but once you get it everything clicks. The controls are so beautiful and engaging that I can see where people come off saying it'll be hard to go back. I can live with this game, and I gladly will. I gotta run, but yes I've gone through the uber trick tutorial. They work great and I've also had problems. I can give a thorough explanation after class because it deserves at least a chapter on what the reviews aren't saying, but I can go into it after I get back. With what I've played and the amount of content to look forward to, this one's looking like a keeper for sure./quote] [quote]Let me explain what's going down with uber moves: Simply, I didn't have a problem pulling them off in the tutorial until I replayed it the 3rd time. Why? Maybe it's because I got over-excited and forgot to hold A, but I have a better feeling it was something else. Let me preface this by saying that SSX Blur is a very engaging and very interactive Wii game. You will get into the controls, which is great for a longtime fan of the series such as myself. I've always felt great with a PS2 controller in my hand, effortlessly racking up numbers and padding down the slopes in SSX3. I had the same luxury of letting my thumbs fire me into the air to land with a TRICKY in the preceding game, but I always wanted to just.... get in there, you know? This is the next step for SSX in my opinion because it plays in a way that nearly connects you to the mountain. This is an excellent thing, as once you "get" the controls everything is just fun and involving. Every motion EA came up with feels great, and although I've only had a taste of the game along with very recently clicking with what the developers had in mind, I can easily see how once you get it down pat --nothing gets in the way of itself and the nunchuk/Wiimote become extensions of your own hands. With this in mind, uber moves come out half and half when you make an average gesture. A small heart shape seems to yield about a 20% success rate for uber moves, whereas a medium-size heart gets around 50%. If you exaggerate motions to a generally large heart shape, your success of pulling an uber move hits somewhere between 90-100%, but it's still finicky at times. Another important thing to remember is that drawing shapes relies on a plane of the Y parallel, which means if you stray from up/down motions and get into the Z-axis of space that whether or not the game recognizes the gestures will become more questionable. I'm nearly certain that these are the issues which determine who has better luck with uber moves and who doesn't. Some people will get their hands on SSX Blur and think the controls are broken, but others won't know what the problem is. In reality, one person is just better at navigating the motions on a flatter surface and the other person is letting their hands go in and out along with up and down. SSX Blur's uber moves may hearken back to the old schoolyard survival-of-the-fittest rules, where some people may just naturally get the hang of it and others never will. Anyone feel free to add to this or correct me if you play it and don't find this to be the case. Overall, I'm very happy with it as I don't have a huge problem executing uber movies, and am happy with regular tricks for the time being since I'm just a baby to the Wii version's controls. Still, I'm very eager to get back to it since I just got back from class, so I'll come back with more to say keep an eye on any questions you guys have. I'm sure there will be more feedback and impressions than just mine throughout the evening, anyways.

Oh by all means, the controls are going to kick your ass. They're definitely something you're going to have to learn. Even now, I'm still learning a lot and it's coming in large amounts of trial and error [such as learning to hit A in order to wrap up a combo and land your tricks]. But like I said before, you'll go at it and then suddenly a piece will just click, and it's like this release of happiness. Here's what I told my friend a bit ago. Imaging you've never had hands, and now you have them. At first it's going to be overwhelming and demanding, trying to get motor skill concepts down to each individual digit may even seem impossible at first, but one you get it you're like "holy shit, I can do all kinds of stuff now!" SSX Blur is a lot like this. There is so much that the controls do, you'd think they were customized for one person who was really adept at the game, but you too can learn them if you try! This is where the initial challenge sets in. The controls are a little bit simple but very complex, and it completely changes the way you play the game. I've been having little revolutions since I started playing, along with my fair share of clumsiness [entirely my fault, mind you]. Much like the game's integrated music and Groove meter, I can only imagine what it's like when you have the whole symphony going. Not to mention that there's all kinds of neat little things going on, like how crisp and white the snow looks compared to Peak 1 in SSX3, how little snowflakes pour out of the cursor so that you can mess all over the screen until you have your own miniature flurry, or that you get a little buzz vibration from the Wiimote when a course has loaded. Like I said, I'm very happy but it's important that more impressions get in here because there will at some point down the road be someone who hates it for whatever reason. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea, and especially not to those who are adamant about motion controls or learning a completely new style of play unlike anything they've come across.

Wow, I feel like an idiot. Okay, in Career mode there is an option in the pause screen to look at available Uber tricks. This is even in the back of the manual, which is why I feel so dumb about it. You can go in and look up close at how each one is performed and even lock the screen to practice them as long as you wish. You'll get "Good!" or "Try again..." depending on if you can do it or not. This was a perfect spot to test out my Y/Z-axis theory and I was wrong. However, it does seem to read movements that are slower and more exaggerated far better than quicker or smaller motions. This is a great spot to practice Uber tricks until you find yourself in a good way with your own motions. Thanks to this extremely thoughtful option, nailing Uber tricks becomes much easier and more natural after some practice.

Yeah it definitely alleviates many worries I had about Uber tricks. I don't feel like re-reading every review, but I wonder how many times that part of the game was mentioned as it's a very critical part or arguing that Uber tricks aren't broken but actually harder to learn.