I want to talk about this game because I think it's one that is going below a lot of people's radars, and it's so much fun that I feel it should be brought up.

The SSX series has been around since the beginning of the Playstation 2.  I liked the games, but didn't really get into them in the way that I've gotten into the latest installment in the series.  To be honest, I don't think I've been this into an extreme sports game since the original Tony Hawk.  The game is a pretty ambitious project that makes really interesting use of asynchronous multiplayer to keep things interesting and competitive, but more on that in a moment.

For those who don't know, SSX is a snowboarding game in which events are categorized as either race events, which focus on completing a run in the fastest possible time, or trick events which focus on racking up the largest amount of points.  The game's single player has you competing against AI opponents in order to earn medals and credits that can be used to earn credits to buy better equipment, more suits, etc. They've made an attempt to create a story out of it, but it's pretty lame.  Still, there's a lot of fun to be had here.

The biggest difference between this game and the previous ones (that I played, anyway) is the addition of equipment.  The story mode is based around doing "Deadly Drops" where the only objective is to survive to the end.  To facilitate this, they have added different equipment like wingsuits, oxygen tanks, and armor to help you make it to the end.  This changes the formula up enough to keep it from getting boring.

The multiplayer is where the game really gets fun.  One mode, Explore, is a fusion between single player in multiplayer where you compete on a run with AI opponents, but the game also posts your scores to your friends, who can then try and beat your score in order to get credit bonuses and to keep competition going.  The other, pure multiplayer mode is called World Events, and is a more tournament based mode where any number of people compete on a time limited event.  The more people competing, the larger the pot, and results are ranked into different divisions.  When the event ends, everyone who qualified gets a payout based on the division they were placed in.

The game controls pretty well, and there are 153 drops (read courses) on which to compete all over the world.  There is a lot of really interesting technology that went into making this game, but I won't get into that.  Still, the game has a lot of replay value.

If there are any criticisms I have, it's just that the game takes some time to master, and it doesn't always explain things like the scoring or boost systems and leaves it to you to just kind of intuit it for yourself.

I'll finish this by saying that it's a game that's well worth your time to check out if you're at all interested in this kind of game.  There's potential for hours and hours of time, and the game loads quickly enough that you can just pick up and play in short spurts without having to dedicate long periods in order to make it worth it.  I'd give this game a full price buy.