#08 - SSX 3 (PS2)
As guessed by Player2.
SSX 3 was an impulse buy for me which probably turned out to be the best impulse buy of my life.
I really wasn't into sports games of any sorts before I bought this, but there's just something about this game that's just perfect for everyone. Like I mentioned in my clue, it's kind of GTA of snowboarding as you're given the freedom to snowboard down the mountain at your leisure - taking part in events if you feel like or just exploring the slopes. The events themselves are a great mixture and again there's a choice - if you want to progress doing only races, you can - if you prefer doing freestyle trick events to progress, you can do that too.
But it wasn't just the open-endedness that helped SSX 3 make this list. The controls are so fluid, you really feel like you're in control of your character. The track design is some of the best I've ever seen, with every course being littered with shortcuts, rails to grind, cliffs to fall off and all sorts. EA Sports decided to include an in-game DJ spinning tracks all day long which oddly was one of the best decisions of the whole game - he would comment about the conditions on various areas of the mountain and recommend places where events were taking place, making it really seem like a living, breathing competition. And the graphics, I find, still hold up perfectly to this day. By going for a slightly larger-than-life look with a crazy colour pallette, it makes the game more than playable at any time. SSX 3 remains probably the best snowboarding game ever made which I doubt will change, but it's so much more than that too. If you haven't played it yet, you owe it to yourself to try this one out.
