SSX 3

Still tricky?

Electronic Arts is like the big welcome wagon into E3. Every year they have huge real estate right at the entrance to South Hall with a gigantic screen and blaring sound to start wearing down your receptors. While we skipped EA Sports' offerings, we did get to sit in on the lone EA Sports BIG title. Even though SSX Tricky wasn't a true sequel to SSX, those Canadians up at EA BIG have decided to attach the number ‘3' to their all new SSX title.

Magic carpet ride

Is that a clipping problem I see?

There it is again!

Since SSX 3 will be appearing on all three of the consoles, there isn't a lot of room to lever the strength of any particular system. But one massive change that will sweep across to all SSX fans is now the environments are massive open mountains. The original SSX was more like a racing game with snowboards. That hasn't changed for the sequel, but players will enjoy much more freedom. Instead of just moving from one course to the other, the player will snowboard though the game peak by peak.

Is that a texture seam?

Ready to do a flash kick

Aren't you cold?

Obviously, the developers are doing their best to make tricks and especially the uber tricks even more over-the-top than in the previous games. In addition to the four new characters added for SSX 3, you'll have the ability customize your characters by buying accessories for them. One example is adding bunny-ears to your cute female snowboarder, a la Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball.

Oooo colorful

Hey, this one's wearing a jacket

Grind that rail, baby

Anticipation factor: There was a huge avalanche of snowboarding games not too long ago, and we didn't care for another one… but now time has passed, and we're looking forward to see what two years of development has done for SSX 3 when it's released this October.