SSX Revival: Elise Riggs from past to present, Level Design

Part 4 in the making of series from EA Sports has interviews with the character designers.  There is a cool sheet displayed here that shows the history of the characters from the first SSX all the way to SSX Blur.  The character modeler shows you how Elise was created for the new game—she’s just the same, only more detailed for the current generation of hardware.

Part 3 was also pretty cool, showing how the new levels are going to be more fantastic than ever before.  Nuff Said!

SSX Revival: Fantastic Mountains and the Return of Elise

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Electronic Arts is releasing a series of videos on the making of the new SSX game (formerly SSX Deadly Descents) on Joystiq each week.  The first video features Todd Batty, the creative director at EA Canada Vancouver, showing off some highlights of the new game.  The three pillars of the new SSX are: Race it, Trick it, Survive it.  Crazy races with death defying jumps and plenty of opportunities for trick combos.  Some members of this team have worked on many of the best SSX games in the past.

SSX was one of the first games I bought for the Playstation 2 back in 2000 and I’ve been a die hard fan of the series ever since.  This franchise has always been fantastic fun, featuring excellent track design on the various mountain slopes, cool music and funny characters.  SSX was followed up by SSX Tricky a year later in 2001, which featured the celebrity voices of Lucy Liu as Elise and David Arquette as Eddie.  Tricky was more or less a gradual improvement on the first game, but it introduced the Uber style tricks which became addictive.  SSX 3, in 2003,  was an absolute masterpiece of gaming.  The tracks were layered on top of each other, so as you went up the mountain, you could ride along the lower tracks for a continuous 30 minute ride.  The soundtrack in SSX 3 featured Fatboy Slim, The X-Executioners, N.E.R.D, and many more—I still have the original CD that came with a behind the scenes video.  Last year I bought a used PS2 slim just to play these games again.  See this earlier post about PS2 retro gaming with Metal Jesus.  SSX On Tour in 2005 broke the winning streak as far as I was concerned.  I can’t remember why I didn’t like it, but it just didn’t feel like SSX. 

The second new SSX video, really makes me think this current EA development team gets what made the franchise fun.  Elise, my favorite character, is shown several times in the video.  Her character sheet features these short descriptions: Glam Girl, Fearless, Confident, Sexy, Aggressive, Amazonian, Free Spirit, Powerful.  Hopefully they have chosen a voice actor who can embody all those characteristics! Lots of different outfits for Elise are displayed quickly, but it looks like her classic red top and blue pants are back, too.  There are teases here for more features.  It looks like there will be many mountains from around the world this time, and Uber tricks are mentioned.  No release date for this game yet, I hope it does come out in 2011 as it currently is slated.  Nuff Said!

Update: Joystiq reported that SSX will ship in January 2012.

L.A. Noire: Investigations and Interrogations, can you tell when people lie?

L.A. Noire is my number one must-have game for this spring.  It’s set in the world of 1950s Los Angeles, similar to James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential.  An open world game with many hours of activities, but this clip above highlights the detective mode aspects.  How many well known TV actors can you identify in this clip besides Aaron Staton (Ken Cosgrove from Mad Men)?  I spotted three immediately: Greg Grunberg (Heroes, Felicity), Patrick Fishler (Mad Men, Lost), and Michael Gladis (also from Mad Men).  There are many more actors that are familiar.  What’s the secret to knowing when people lie—when they look away from you while answering a question?  Nuff Said.

Borderlands: So good it should be illegal.

I bought Borderlands (XBox 360) yesterday, popped in the disk at 11pm thinking I'd play an hour before going to sleep.  When I stopped it was 1:30am.

This game is irresistible if you loved the loot-gathering of Diablo and you get off on the kickback of a gun firing.  The enemy AI leaves something to be desired, but the gun combinations are terrific.  I got a pistol last night that fires incendiary bullets and a grenade mod that splits your grenade up into separate little mini-grenades.  This is only just the beginning, as I'm only at Level 7.

Jeff Gerstmann's review of Borderlands on Giant Bomb really convinced me that I would love this game.  I like to play games mostly on my own, and this game works well either single player or with friends.  A number of critics detail Borderlands good vs bad points, but only Gerstmann accurately described the crystal meth level of addiction that Borderlands can inspire.  Nuff said.

BTW, Fanboy Radio fans will be pleased to know that Oliver Tull is the voice of the Soldier character, delivering funny lines like "Now that's what I call a head shot!" Nuff said.

Metal Jesus Preaches the Love of the PS2 and Retro-Gaming

I'm a wasteful type of Dude.  I get tired of some gadget, game, or book and sell it, recycle, or throw it away.  I feel good for a while, like I removed a cancerous growth from some part of my body.  My old lady feels better because the house is less cluttered and everything is groovy.  A few months or a year later, I find myself wishing I hadn't gotten rid of this or that.  This happened to me recently with the Playstation 2.  I started thinking about how cool some of those games were.  And those games will probably never be replicated the same on the PS3.

I prayed and prayed about my long lost PS2.  Should I buy a PS2 Slim?  I really should not, because I have a ton of PS3 games with no time to play.  But it kept hammering in my mind, like a drumbeat:  ps2.  ps2.  Ps2.  PS2.  PS2.  PS2!  PS2!

Then I found Jesus.  This Jesus saves souls from the abyss of video-gaming.  Not the bowling alley Jesus, the guy called Metal Jesus, because Metal Jesus Rocks on YouTube.

This video review made me feel like I wasn't going coconuts.  Metal Jesus delivers a 10 minute SSX retrospective, covering the game that launched on the PS2 and defined that console for me.  Everything MJ says is right on.  SSX was fun, SSX Tricky turned up the heat with the tracks and celebrity voices, while SSX 3 is a masterpiece that will never be duplicated.  The game play, tracks, tricks, and most of--the soundtrack--will never be equaled in another snowboarding game.

MJ not only delivers an opinion that I totally love, it's the same opinion as mine.  That's why I love it!

MJ also gave a great overview of the Need For Speed series.  Did you know that NFS is the 5th best selling series of all time and sold 100 million copies?  Wow.  I love it, MJ loves it, the whole frackin' world loves this series.  At least until it went all Nitro.

I played each one of these games that MJ talks about, from the PC games to the PS1 and PS2.  NFS: Hot Pursuit 2 on the PS2 was a great one, and the clips that MJ showed justified my back-purchase of the PS2 even more.

If that's not enough, check out the Classic Game Room on YouTube.  This guy tries to upload a new game review video every day or so, both classic-retro and new games.  Ok, by the time I found this one, I am looking to double justify my insanity.  Black for the PS2 is gloriously fun: this shooter had excellent guns, enemies, and map designs.  No multiplayer, but I hate multiplayer, the Dude rocks these games solo.  Criterion (same company behind Burnout) made Black hoping for a franchise, but it didn't take.

Now let's say you are like me, you want to buy a PS2 slim.  In this video, Classic Game Room reviews the latest PS2 slim and goes over some of the differences between it and the first generation PS2.  Forget the new XBox man, the PS2 slim is the ultimate machine.

After 4 videos of classic gaming goodness, I was converted to the side of Metal Jesus.  I picked up a used PS2 Slim and all the games I wanted for less than $100.  I've been having a blast ever since.  No matter how frazzled I get, sliding down those SSX 3 slopes while listening to Kinky's Mas just cools me right off.  It also helps if I drink a White Russian at the same time.

And the voices have been quiet in my head ever since.  Except for the voice of Lucy Liu as Elise (Don't get snarky sparky!) When that happens, I just say: Nuff Said!

Link:  Metal Jesus Rocks on YouTube.

Link:  Classic Game Room on YouTube.