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SSX On Tour Review: 4 Reasons to Buy

SSX On Tour Cover

SSX On Tour Review: 4 Reasons to Buy

Fans of snowboarding or snow in general will appreciate SSX On Tour. Released in 2005 SSX On Tour is the fourth title of the SSX series made for PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation Portable. Once at the peak of their popularity, series such as Cool Boarders and Nintendo’s own 1080 Snowboarding found themselves covered under a mountain of white stuff due to the powder flying off the boards of EA Sports BIG’s SSX On Tour. Read on to discover the four reasons to check it out.

Shredding the Slopes

SSX On Tour Screenshot
Race your way to the finish line in style.

SSX On Tour continues the shreddin’ attitude and over the top arcade gameplay that kicked into high gear with last year’s game and continues that tradition. From the moment the intro sequence zooms onto the screen to the tune of Iron Maiden’s Run To The Hills, you’ll instantly know SSX On Tour is attempting to cover some new ground.

SSX On Tour allows players to create their own borders or skiers and take them from a wannabe to a mountain rockstar. Players can get noticed in all-new shred challenges where they earn an invitation to The Tour where they’ll face the best racers in the SSX cast. Fly down the all-new tracks and master the new monster tricks for both boarding and skiing to make it to the top of The Charts.

Artistic Vibe of SSX On Tour 

SSX On Tour
Hit the park while flying down the slope.

The art direction of the game’s presentation is so off the wall that it immediately puts the player in the “Wild On” vibe. This is a party on a hill. SSX On Tour’s menu presentation is insanely fun to look at, the actual game is crisp. The action still takes place on one mountain which is littered with shortcuts and other paths for you to investigate. The character animations are topnotch (especially during the newly titled Monster Tricks) while the real stars of the show happen to be the little extras like falling snow, spraying powder and cool effects lighting.

Speed Down the Slopes 

SSX
Insane realism in SSX On Tour.

The heart of the game is of course the On Tour mode, which functions as a career mode. Gone is the emphasis placed on celeb voices and wacky characters. While the create a character feature is pretty simplistic, it’s the On Tour mode that will garner most of your attention. Since the core of SSX On Tour has always been more about racing to the bottom of the hill rather than pulling off insane tricks. Boost will allow you to pull off Monster Tricks which are executed at the touch of the R analog stick which in effect takes the challenge out of performing cool stunts, but as I already said, that’s more of a bonus anyway. The races you’ll undertake in SSX On Tour do manage to keep things fresh by forcing you to complete various objectives which will test your skills as you speed down the mountain.

Lively Soundtrack in SSX On Tour

SSX
Tricks are easy when you’re having fun doing it.

Since this is EA you can expect to hear some hip hop tunes, but the soundtrack does manage to appeal more to the metal heads than most of their products. You’ll be doing the index finger, pinky heavy metal salute to Dio, Scorpions and Motorhead. Speaking of the classic heavy metal hand gesture, be sure to keep your eyes out for all sorts of cool doodles on the slopes. Sound effects in SSX On Tour are pretty impressive stuff too.

Last Words

Those who are looking for more Tony Hawk style challenges which are entirely based on skill, might not dig the SSX On Tour vibe. However, those who know that it’s all about getting to the bottom first and looking awesome while doing it will really get into this one. At its core SSX On Tour remains extremely faithful to the series and is a fantastic evolution of SSX 3 without losing sight of where EA was taking the franchise.

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