"It's time to rock! To rock around the block!"

Despite my game malaise I am finding myself at turns overjoyed and filled with dark rage at SSX.  I'm also beginning to have some disappointments.

I love the SSX series and played the shit out of it back in the early-mid aughts.  So after playing the shit out of the demo I decided to pick up a copy.  I'm pretty impressed with everything about the game.  The single player is really just an extended trainer for the rest of the action.  The online experience is pretty awesome but something I need to delve into deeper.  I really enjoy the exploration gameplay feature which is open from the beginning (with all regions and characters unlocked).  It's an awesome way to check out tracks and how characters play and level them up.  My favorite are the survival modes in which you must race or solo through a harrowing course which wants to kill you.

The courses range from short and sweet to long and rage inducing (particularly the final areas which feature lots of crevasses which seem to appear out of nowhere to buttfuck your soul).  The final storyline race had me gritting my teeth so hard they started to creak and I still couldn't get more than halfway down the course.  Some of areas are massive almost to the point of insanity (Alaska and Siberia are frigging awesome) and during exploration mode it seems like there is always something to check out or trick off of.  I haven't really checked out the online components of the game but plan to soon.

The downside to SSX is that it's not SSX Tricky and for some bullshit reason Tricky is not backwards compatible for the 360.  What I miss about Tricky is the level of customization, the sense of chaos, and being able to knock other players off their fucking boards in a race.  Additionally the characters don't really feel different from one another.  In the character selection it says that each has their own set of bonuses but I haven't noticed a difference, especially since I can buy equipment that will boost skills.  I also miss some of the stat tweaking like handling.  Most of the music is shite but there are a couple of cuts I like.

That being said I am having good old fashioned fun playing SSX.  Except for the last race.  Fuck that race.  Fuck it in its ear.

An overdue megapost

Haven't been feeling the bloggity bloggity recently.  Been pretty bored and just putzing around with SWTOR and watching recent "blockbusters" which for the most part haven't been worth the time spent watching them (Rise of Planet of the Apes was fuckin stupid but then again all of those movies are shite).  Frankly I've run out of interest on SWTOR and will probably cancel my subscription sometime in the neart future.  On the upside there have been one or two games which have peaked my interest and these are worth commenting on.

Alan Wake was released on PC a week or so ago and has been getting good reviews.  I hadn't played it on 360 because I didn't want to buy it piecemeal DLC.  The PC version is complete and the same price point as on 360 so I went with PC.  It's an interesting game that belongs to the Silent Hill school of survival horror, very atmospheric, spooky, clumsy combat, etc etc etc.  I'm enjoying it and recommend it if you're looking for something to play with the lights off.  One thing I particularly like is how the game is broken into episodes, like a tv series.  At the beginning of a new episode the game does a "Previously on Alan Wake" and then the next segment begins.  This division of chapters has actually changed my game play style.  Instead of power gaming through it I've played an episode and then done something - or played something - else.  Kind of cool.

Some of you may know that for some insane bizarre reason I fucking love the SSX series even thought it's an Xtreme snowboarding game.  I played the shit out of SSX3 & SSX: Tricky but that was many years ago now (SSX3 was released in 2003 - which was so long ago I was still married to my first wife).  Today the new incarnation of SSX was released and I played the demo over the weekend.  It fucking rules.  I played the shit out of the demo and just had fun.  I was rocking out by myself bein all XTREME!  Seriously though, the game looks amazing, plays great, and in the full version there's an explore mode so you can just jam around bro.  RADICAL!  Plus there's going to be online racing and trick competition.  DUDE!  SWEET!  I can't wait to play Kaori again.  Nimble little minx.

Other games coming down the line: The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings for the 360 is coming out April 17th, Borderlands 2, Hitman:Absolution, and Max Payne 3.  Gonna be a pretty good year for games.

Hope all you fine folks are well and safe and not completely miserable.