Game of the Moment: SSX 3

For this past Christmas, Jenn gave me the game SSX 3. This is the third in a series of extreme snow boarding games. I had played the second, SSX Tricky, and loved it. When I first put SSX 3 in my console, I was really excited. I had spent hours and hours mastering SSX Tricky, and I was frothing at the mouth to play this new and improved version. To be honest, my first impressions were a bit of a let down. The graphics were slightly improved, and the characters were a bit different. There were a couple of new tricks, and the controls had been tweaked a little. But it was still very similar to SSX Tricky. I think I was expecting more, and maybe something different.

It's now May, and I'm still playing SSX 3, and I appreciate it more every day. The game has such incredible replay value, which is very important. All of the little things that I didn't appreciate at first are now incredibly important. I'm glad that it is similar to Tricky, because it has all of the elements that I loved about that game. And the areas that have changed have changed for the better. Racing down the mountain is fun and exhilarating, pulling major tricks is challenging and exciting, and the game seems to provide and endless series of goals to reach for. I'm currently attempting to get all of the riders up to 100% in their attributes. Once I get that completed, I'll look to either earn Gold medals in all events, or complete some more of the Big Challenges. There are hundreds of Big Challenges scattered throughout the mountain, and the difficulty ranges from simple to throw the controller across the room frustrating. There is also an extra challenge in that each event has a Platinum medal that is more difficult to earn than the Gold. The times and scores required for a platinum seem insane, but the more I play, the more they seem to be just out of reach.

The only bad thing is that my time for playing games has greatly diminished since Corbin arrived. This means that I'm sacrificing sleep for gametime. For instance, last night I was up until nearly 2am playing when I should have been in bed. The game is just so addicting and engrossing. I sit down thinking that I'll play for 30 minutes, and don't get up for three hours. If you have never played any of the SSX series, and even if you have, this game is a must play!