SSX Tricky - Review
(EA Sports BIG, Sony PlayStation 2 Game, 2001)
Grapes’ Gold Standard Revisited – SSX Tricky
Alan hits the slopes and returns to this sixth-generation snowboarding game
In this new series I will be revisiting classic games to see whether they still hold up today, and we kick off with SSX Tricky, the snowboarding game released by EA Sports BIG in 2001 for sixth generation consoles, as a follow up to the original SSX.
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Some things are timeless. They are crafted so well and meet their purpose so perfectly that they never feel old. If you are lucky enough to own a Rolex watch, travel in an E-type Jaguar or even watch an episode of Fawlty Towers, you aren’t remotely interested in the date it was made, only the quality, the precision and the way it makes you feel.
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So the big question is - is SSX Tricky timeless? At 22 years old, does it still provide the same enjoyment that it did the first time around? Let’s find out...
Hit The Slopes
The game offers eight levels, which you can work your way through as one of 12 characters in four play modes.
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Freeride and Practice modes enable the player to hone their skills and learn a course. World Circuit sees you competing against other opponents in either a series of races or trick events, and Single Event allows one or two players to play a single stage from the World Circuit section of the game.
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When racing in World Circuit mode, your simple aim is to be the first across the finish line. You have the option to race respectfully (Ed. – “But where is the fun in that?!”) or you can be more of a hooligan and try to knock your opponents over. The twist is that your fellow racers react depending on how you treat them; if you impede them, they will reply in kind.
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Jumping For Joy
The other mode within World Circuit is Showoff and this is where the real fun is to be found. Here the focus is all about doing tricks and clocking up big scores. In this mode, each course is littered with ramps and rails. Holding down the jump button and releasing it just before you reach the edge of one will send you into the air. Your tricks aren’t limited to the ramps and rails either; you can launch a jump from any part of the course.
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Spins and flips can be performed while airborne using the D-pad and the shoulder buttons add flourishes and board-grabs. Landing a jump successfully sees you awarded points and your boost-bar will start to fill. This boost can be used to gain greater speed, which in turn gives you more air from your jumps, allowing you to pull increasingly impressive tricks.
Did Somebody Order An Uber?
If you fill the boost-bar completely, you can perform Uber tricks by holding one (or a combination) of the shoulder buttons along with the Uber button (for example – square for the PS2). Uber tricks are crazy-flamboyant, defy the laws of physics, and can earn huge points.
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If you land an Uber trick, a letter in the word Tricky (which sits on-screen) is illuminated. Complete the word and your boost is maxed out for the remainder of that level. Tricks score points depending on their complexity and your stage score is rated against the opposition.
Big Points = Big Fun
Liberally spread around each course are yellow, orange and red snowflakes floating temptingly in the air. If you manage to jump through one while pulling a trick, your score for that trick is multiplied by two, three or five times respectively. If you can nail a couple of Uber tricks (or more) through a five-times multiplier your scores can skyrocket.
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Each course contains hidden routes to be explored. The first are relatively sensible, but by the time you reach Tokyo Megaplex they are insane, featuring a myriad of ramps, rails, chutes and air-vents that propel you high into the air, ensuring that you spend very little time at ground level. There is no quest for realism on display here, this is pure video game lunacy turned up to 11 and it’s brilliant!
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In both Race and Showoff mode you compete in three rounds with a top-three finish ensuring progression to the next race, while a medal placing in the final unlocks the next course. You are also rewarded with medals (which unlock new characters, outfits and boards) and power-up points (which can be spent improving your character’s speed, edging, stability and trick-speed).
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Risk and Reward
The graphics are fantastic and look much better than the screenshots convey, with each course and character having a distinctive and individual look. The courses are well designed and feel solid, with enough freedom to let you pick your route, but not so much that you feel lost. The sound and music is excellent, and the character voices were provided by celebrities such as Lucy Liu and Macy Gray.
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But it is in the gameplay department that this game really shines. The controls are intuitive, precise, and once you get the hang of landing your tricks, hugely satisfying and rewarding. When you land your first Uber trick you will be smiling like the Cheshire Cat, and when you nail your first double-Uber through a red multiplier you may well find yourself becoming a tad moist! (Ed. - “Oi, this is a family magazine!”)
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Uneven Slopes
Negatives? Well the game is really all about the Showoff events in World Circuit mode; everything else feels a bit bolted on. There is nothing particularly wrong with the racing element per se, but Showoff is just so much fun you will spend most of your time there!
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Also, the Showoff levels, while well designed and nicely diverse, are a little uneven in terms of difficulty level. Some can be cleared on a first attempt, but Mesablanca and Aloha Ice Jam in particular can be pretty tough to qualify from. That’s not to say that it isn’t fun trying (and of course there needs to be some challenge) but the difficulty curve isn’t particularly linear.
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A True Gem
In the years since 2001 there have been numerous incarnations of the SSX franchise across many platforms, but none properly captured the essence of SSX Tricky. Here you are always working within a defined play area, with the rails and ramps nicely placed and easier to find and hit. Later versions provided the player with a far greater open-world experience, offering a game that was significantly more realistic and impressive, but ultimately not as much fun.
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I am not a snow-sports enthusiast and before I played the original SSX this was not a game that would have appealed to me. But this is so well executed and is such fun, it is impossible not to fall in love. A great selection of characters, courses and tricks provide a comprehensive gaming experience. It will take many hours of play to unlock everything and even after you have there is still enormous replay value as you search for that elusive perfect run.
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Thoroughly enjoyable, challenging, rewarding and brilliantly executed, SSX Tricky is genuinely a timeless classic. As much fun today as it was in 2001, this is an absolute gem and deserves to grace any collection.
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Graphics – 91%
Impressing in all departments, this is perfect gaming eye-candy. The courses, while being increasingly insane and outrageous, manage at the same time to always feel solid and real.
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Sounds – 92%
Great effects, music and celebrity voice samples.
Grab-factor – 95%
Instant pick-up-and-play. Once you get used to landing your tricks there is no looking back.
Playability – 97%
In reality the game is predominantly about the Showoff section, but this section alone offers one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I have ever encountered. So good in fact, that I will forgive the slightly more ordinary racing element.
Verdict – 94%
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AG May 2023
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Featured in Pixel Addict magazine, issue 13.
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© Words and pictures copyright grapeswriting.com
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Pole Position - Arcade, Review
Grapes grabs his gearstick and channels his inner Alain Prost...
Ah, Pole Position. The name alone invokes a sense of speed, excitement, and, if you were an 80s child or teenager, perhaps a whiff of sweaty palms on a hot summer’s day. Namco’s 1982 arcade racing game wasn’t just a game; it was a sensation.
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But how well does this title hold up, over 40 years later? Let’s adjust the arcade cabinet’s enormous steering wheel and rev up our engines for a reckless ride through the world of arcade motor racing...
“Prepare to Qualify”
Pole Position was originally released as an arcade cabinet, but was subsequently ported to many systems, including the Commodore Vic-20 and C64, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the BBC Micro and later to more advanced consoles such as the Sony PlayStation and Nintendo’s N64 and Game Boy Advance.
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You start by taking on a qualification time-trial, where your goal is to complete a lap as quickly as possible, avoiding cars, off-track obstacles, and negotiating those pesky corners where you invariably encounter extra traffic, making things far trickier than perhaps you might expect. If you achieve the required qualification time you get to enter the race proper, which offers up to three laps racing against other cars and the clock.
The premise is simple: speed, curves, and crashes. Except, unlike the racing simulators of today, Pole Position doesn't care about the laws of physics. There’s no realism here, just pure arcade action that has you sawing at the steering wheel like a maniac while avoiding trackside signs, dodging slow-moving cars, and, at times, wondering how you’re even surviving.
This shameless lack of reality in the pursuit of arcade thrills is beautifully demonstrated when, if you make it to the race and can leave the field behind at the start, you will encounter back-markers by the third corner - which in the real world would be completely impossible!
Steering Wheel Shenanigans
One of the first things you'll notice about Pole Position is the iconic steering wheel. There’s something deeply satisfying about grabbing that thick, plastic wheel and trying to steer your car around a track that is initially seemingly both terrifying and impossible to navigate.
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You steer left, you steer right, and at some point you realise that you are just pretending to drive. The game doesn’t really care about your input; it's almost as if it wants you to fail. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though. In fact, it’s one of the key elements of the Pole Position charm: the more you crash, the more you realise that this game isn’t designed for real drivers - it’s aimed squarely at gamers. This certainly isn’t offering any shortcut to becoming a F1 racing master, and there’s something wonderfully hilarious about the sheer unpredictability of the wheel’s response.
The Track (If You Can Call It That)
In modern racing games, we are treated to painstakingly detailed tracks: high-speed straights, sharp corners, and elevation changes that make you question your own grip on reality. In Pole Position, the track feels as if it was designed by someone who had just learned what a racetrack was but hadn’t yet figured out how to make it interesting. The track is repetitive, filled with turns that never quite align to your car’s natural steering curve, unforgiving signs on the outer edge of the sharper bends, and straights that are an open invitation to misjudge a gap between other cars and crash spectacularly.
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But here’s the kicker: this simplicity actually works in the game’s favour. It’s not trying to be an early Gran Turismo type simulator, but rather an arcade experience that’s about speed and fun. Sure, the turns are hard to navigate, but that’s the beauty of it. It offers a sense of panic and urgency, and that is 90% of what makes Pole Position so addictive. The game doesn’t expect you to win; it just wants you to try, and to have fun in the process.
8-bit Dreams and Neon Nightmares
It’s impossible to talk about Pole Position without acknowledging the graphics. In 1982, these were cutting-edge visuals; at least, they were if you squinted and didn’t mind the jagged edges. Today, they’re gloriously pixelated, and if you’re a fan of retro-aesthetics, they’ll give you a sense of true nostalgic delight. The cars are blocky, and the road looks like something out of an abstract painting by an artist who forgot to finish it. But none of that matters; its charm is the kind of low-res, high-speed art that only 80s arcade games could pull off.
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Sure, it’s not even slightly photorealistic, but it doesn’t matter when you find yourself desperately trying to stay on the track while marvelling at the magical, neon-infused, 8-bit environment that rushes past you at a breakneck pace. Who needs realism when you've got this kind of artistry?
Vroom, Vroom, Boom!
One of the most delightful elements of Pole Position is the sound. It’s a symphony of 80s arcade nostalgia: the roar of the engine, the screech of tires, and the satisfying explosion when your car tangles with the barriers yet again. The iconic introduction music gets your blood pumping and it all adds up to a racing experience that’s so far from realistic it’s almost as if you're in a cartoon.
Opponents That Are There, But Not There...
When you hit the track, you’re not alone. There are other cars out there, each with a personality that can only be described as, um, completely indifferent to your success. These cars will drift along, minding their business, out for a Sunday drive and acting as obstructions to your otherwise flawless progress. But they’re not racing you; no, that would imply competition. Instead, they are there solely to impede you at the worst possible moment.
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At least you can take solace in the fact that their AI is as smart as a bowl of soup. These cars don’t care if you’re behind them, ahead of them, or crashing into them. They just sort of exist, like ghosts in a video game world, haunting you as you try to navigate the track.
A Classic, a Challenge, and a Lot of Fun
But with all that said, Pole Position is, in a word, delightful. Sure, it might be frustrating as you overshoot corners or erupt into yet another ball of flame just 20 yards short of the chequered flag, but it’s that very simplicity and quirkiness that makes it such an iconic experience. The game doesn’t ask much from you; just to have fun, speed down the track, and pray you don’t crash.
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It’s a time capsule, a love letter to arcade gaming, and a reminder of a simpler time when the most important thing was not whether your car's performance and handling was realistic, but whether you could survive another lap. Sure, it doesn’t hold up as a technical marvel by today’s standards, but that’s what makes it great. It’s a thrilling, chaotic experience that lets you embrace the pure joy of arcade racing without any of the pretension.
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So, if you ever find yourself in front of an old Pole Position cabinet, grab the wheel, rev the engine, and remember - it’s not about winning. It’s about making the other drivers wonder just what kind of maniac is behind the wheel...
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Graphics - 85%
While it is now undoubtedly showing its age, for 1982 this was stunning.
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​​Sounds - 94%
The sound-effects produce a great atmosphere, while the introductory music and the “Prepare to Qualify” sample are legendary.
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​Grab-Factor - 80%
Getting to grips with the car’s twitchy handling was a challenge, but this game definitely had the wow-factor!
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​Playability - 96%
​For the period this was a gold-standard arcade game. It may have aged but it still delivers brilliant fun and a massive nostalgia hit.
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Verdict - 89%
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AG December 2024
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Featured in Pixel Addict magazine, issue xxx.
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© Words and pictures copyright grapeswriting.com
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