By Daniel Rutledge
Snowboard lovers with current-gen consoles can finally hit the slopes again thanks to a new SSX title.
The franchise, which started with the PlayStation 2 launch title SSX back in 2000, is making its first entry into the realms of both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 with a reboot simply entitled SSX.
Recently I sat down with the art director, Jeff Coates, for a chat about what the latest game is bringing to the franchise.
When the first SSX game came out, there were a lot of similar sport games doing quite well on the market, but there's not so many now. Why have you decided to release a new SSX?
I've worked on all the previous SSX games and from my perspective, it really felt like we wanted to do things on the previous games that we just couldn't do. We were very ambitious and just couldn't pull much of it off. It feels like now, from a company standpoint, the technology has really caught up to some of those ambitions. Not just from a hardware standpoint, but also from a software standpoint. Now just feels like the right time for the company to put another one out.
I played the game for a while just before this interview and it has quite a different feel from the previous titles. Tell me about how you wanted to make this SSX different, in ways other than technological advancements?
Well SSX is really all about: race it, trick it and survive it. Well 'race it' and 'trick it' are key components to the franchise, part of the heart and soul of what SSX is, but the 'survive it' aspect really adds another element to it. I think that's what we're seeing as we look at some of these tracks now, they're much more dangerous and exhilarating than our past tracks. The past ones were all about the big event, and these new ones are more about the iconic natural terrain.
I'm stoked to see the inclusion of the wingsuits in the game as I've become addicted to watching videos of nutters using them on YouTube recently...
Yeah they're amazing aren't they? We watched a lot of those at work. The Patagonia wingsuit track in the game is one of my favourites.
Since the release of the first SSX way back in 2000, has there been many changes to the sport of snowboarding in real life that have been incorporated into the game?
We've explored other things in previous versions of the game, we had alpine boards previously, we had skiing with On Tour. But one of the big influences for this one specifically, we watched new snowboarding videos out there like The Art of Flight, we see real-world snowboarders attacking mountains that no one's ever done before. Everyone in real life is amping it up. That was a real key inspiration point for us. So we take that massive reality of going off these massive peaks and then we give it the SSX treatment and amp it up as much as possible beyond that.
As the art director for the game, can you tell me how accurately the levels recreate the real locations they are based on?
We really wanted to give you the ability in the game to explore the world. There are nine different regions, 27 different peaks and over 100 different runs. They go from Antarctica to Africa to Alaska to the Himalayas to Siberia and on and on. The team started with topographical data that they got from a NASA site and that became the foundation for our tracks. So we take that topographical data and run it through a proprietary software we have called Mountain Man, which gets the data into our game engine and we build onto that the over-the-top SSX experience. Obviously we exaggerate some of the actual landscapes quite a bit so that it's more fun to play, but the topographical data is the basis for everything. And every region has its own feel and look that is very specific to what that region actually looks like.
New Zealand doesn't feature in the game?
New Zealand definitely features in the game. It’s an amazing region with breathtaking natural environment. It has quite possibly the largest set piece created in SSX, a massive concrete dam spillway that sits right at the center of the mountain. You can go into the dam where you can ride through the pipes or air over top of it presenting you with an amazing view. New Zealand is also home to the white-out deadly descent where you have to navigate down the mountain when you literally can’t see more than a few feet in front of you.
The soundtracks of SSX have always been very cool. How important do you think the music is to the game?
Music is a huge part of the SSX experience and always has been from day one. We're looking at things like giving people customizable playlists and the ability to download their own music and that sort of thing. We're not quite ready yet to talk about artists that are appearing on the game yet. [ed note: since the interview was conducted, this news on the soundtrack has been published]
SSX has always been a fairly accessible title for gamers of all levels of skill. Do you think this new SSX will still be OK for newbie gamers?
Yeah and you don't have to be a snowboarder to really enjoy it. It's a fun, across-the-board type of an experience that I think anyone can enjoy. And the difficulty of it is layered. I'm not the best player on the development team by any stretch, but I can pick it up and pretty quickly start doing some of those crazy tricks. But then I can watch someone else play, like this guy on our team called Connor who is super good at it, and he does all sorts of tricks that I haven't even seen before. That layer of complexity is actually really cool.
Tell me about the competitive aspect of the game.
The online aspect is really important to us, we want to redefine how people will be experiencing and playing the game online. We have something called 'Rider Net Recommends' which follows how you play a track. It'll then recommend other drops for you to go and check out, based on whether or not you're a big tricks person, or whether or not you like to go really fast or whatever. It'll also recommend other people who are online right now to come and play against you. There's a bunch of other features in the game that will really enhance the experience that you have with your friends online.
Of what we can talk about at the moment, what is your favourite part of the game to play?
I really like the wingsuit thing. It's just so fun to be able to go over those jumps and glide over to the next area. I really like that, it's my favourite thing. Having said that, each region has a specific feel to it and there is a specific unique moment in each of them that are all fun.
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SSX is scheduled to be released in New Zealand on 17 February 2012 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
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