One of the more interesting phenomenons in gaming is when a series releases two consecutive games with wildly different philosophies. The most famous of these situations would likely be Ocarina of Time & Majora's Mask, but just as interesting-although less discussed-is the dichotomy between SSX's 2nd and 3rd installment; SSX Tricky & SSX 3. While the former stuck much to the original SSX's model of extreme, whacky racing from all around the world, SSX 3 opted for a new approach; one continuous mountain to improve your skills upon in an effort to reach the summit. For SSX, that meant that for the first time, gameplay was freed from its rather linear nature of racing and performing tricks.
The phrase "open-world" might seem like an odd one to apply to an extreme sports title, but the core sense of a world waiting to be explored is what SSX 3 does so well. Everything in SSX 3 takes place in the same setting, offering a sense of connectivity and progress that other extreme sports games lack. Progression itself is varied; other than winning races and slopestyle events, there are earnings goals and freeride challenges you can complete which also give rewards and unlock further events. There's also the mountain in general, which contains 3 peaks, each with their own races and freestyle events. A unified setting does somewhat limit the amount of variety and personality courses can contain, it's a sacrifice well worth making for the sense of immersion the mountain creates. Most impressive are the backcountry sections, which are untracked areas with plenty of traversal options; you're likely to ride down them a dozen times before discovering every path they have to offer. The final setting makes use of them by taking you all the way from the summit to the bottom of the mountain, lasting over 25 minutes with multiple race zones, while requiring no loading. This was incredibly impressive in 2003, and it's still quite remarkable today.
What helps tie all this immersion together, though, is the voiceover work of DJ Atomika. It's impossible to understate how much this element brings to the game. The DJ will constantly respond to the player's actions and victories, while also offering plenty of irrelevant anecdotes which do nothing more than give the game a tremendous amount of heart and personality; it's an inclusion which would be beneficial to almost every sports game. And when combined with SSX Tricky's already well-refined gameplay, SSX 3 comes out as a refreshingly unique title to experience almost 20 years post its release. In fact, its aged quite well in all regards; controls are still as good as ever, and the game feels great to play. Racing and slopestyle are back from previous entries, as well as new Big Air and Super Pipe events, which both add to the SSX experience and help to further vary the gameplay. It hasn't lost a single step to the passage of time, and outside of its passable graphics, it's a snowboarding game that has no trouble standing up to modern games and, in many ways, outpacing them.
The extra challenges and modes to complete makes SSX 3 the bulkiest title in the series to date, which is excellent news for those who want more of the action. Those extra areas are where the gameplay can drop a bit in quality though, which makes 100%ing the game feel like a bit of a drag sometimes. A couple of the challenges in free ride mode, mainly any involving passing through gates or collecting items, can be quite bothersome due to the often inconsistent hitboxes. The collectable snowflakes are nice to encourage exploration, but would seriously benefit from some kind of map to track which ones you've found and which you haven't. There's also the difficulty, which starts out fine, but doesn't increase fast enough to keep up with the player's progression. This is especially noticeable in the final slopestyle and race events, which fail to deliver on their epicness somewhat due to the lack of challenge involved with them. They're still very fun to playthrough no doubt, but an optional "final boss" like event would have fit the occasion much more. By the time you've reached that point, though, you've experienced dozens of hours of excellent gameplay, and it's unlikely to shift your opinion on the game much.
SSX 3 isn't discussed as much as its predecessor in the modern day, and that's a shame, because there's enough adoration to go around. Luckily, though, there's nothing missing from this game that was there upon its release in 2003; it remains one of the greatest snowboarding games of all time, and a shining example to modern day titles as to what the potential of the sports genre truly is. It's a wildly innovative title from a series that could have just played it safe, and it's all the better for it. SSX 3 represents a creative peak for the franchise which has still yet to be matched to this day; good thing this game feels just as good to play as the day it came out.
The phrase "open-world" might seem like an odd one to apply to an extreme sports title, but the core sense of a world waiting to be explored is what SSX 3 does so well. Everything in SSX 3 takes place in the same setting, offering a sense of connectivity and progress that other extreme sports games lack. Progression itself is varied; other than winning races and slopestyle events, there are earnings goals and freeride challenges you can complete which also give rewards and unlock further events. There's also the mountain in general, which contains 3 peaks, each with their own races and freestyle events. A unified setting does somewhat limit the amount of variety and personality courses can contain, it's a sacrifice well worth making for the sense of immersion the mountain creates. Most impressive are the backcountry sections, which are untracked areas with plenty of traversal options; you're likely to ride down them a dozen times before discovering every path they have to offer. The final setting makes use of them by taking you all the way from the summit to the bottom of the mountain, lasting over 25 minutes with multiple race zones, while requiring no loading. This was incredibly impressive in 2003, and it's still quite remarkable today.
What helps tie all this immersion together, though, is the voiceover work of DJ Atomika. It's impossible to understate how much this element brings to the game. The DJ will constantly respond to the player's actions and victories, while also offering plenty of irrelevant anecdotes which do nothing more than give the game a tremendous amount of heart and personality; it's an inclusion which would be beneficial to almost every sports game. And when combined with SSX Tricky's already well-refined gameplay, SSX 3 comes out as a refreshingly unique title to experience almost 20 years post its release. In fact, its aged quite well in all regards; controls are still as good as ever, and the game feels great to play. Racing and slopestyle are back from previous entries, as well as new Big Air and Super Pipe events, which both add to the SSX experience and help to further vary the gameplay. It hasn't lost a single step to the passage of time, and outside of its passable graphics, it's a snowboarding game that has no trouble standing up to modern games and, in many ways, outpacing them.
The extra challenges and modes to complete makes SSX 3 the bulkiest title in the series to date, which is excellent news for those who want more of the action. Those extra areas are where the gameplay can drop a bit in quality though, which makes 100%ing the game feel like a bit of a drag sometimes. A couple of the challenges in free ride mode, mainly any involving passing through gates or collecting items, can be quite bothersome due to the often inconsistent hitboxes. The collectable snowflakes are nice to encourage exploration, but would seriously benefit from some kind of map to track which ones you've found and which you haven't. There's also the difficulty, which starts out fine, but doesn't increase fast enough to keep up with the player's progression. This is especially noticeable in the final slopestyle and race events, which fail to deliver on their epicness somewhat due to the lack of challenge involved with them. They're still very fun to playthrough no doubt, but an optional "final boss" like event would have fit the occasion much more. By the time you've reached that point, though, you've experienced dozens of hours of excellent gameplay, and it's unlikely to shift your opinion on the game much.
SSX 3 isn't discussed as much as its predecessor in the modern day, and that's a shame, because there's enough adoration to go around. Luckily, though, there's nothing missing from this game that was there upon its release in 2003; it remains one of the greatest snowboarding games of all time, and a shining example to modern day titles as to what the potential of the sports genre truly is. It's a wildly innovative title from a series that could have just played it safe, and it's all the better for it. SSX 3 represents a creative peak for the franchise which has still yet to be matched to this day; good thing this game feels just as good to play as the day it came out.