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Opinion: SSX's tricky new look

SSX's new look might have long-term fans questioning the changes, but it's the only way the franchise could hope to return and succeed. BIG isn't always better.

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Like the waft of pine-fir under the nose gets folk excited over the impending holiday season, so does the first signs of snow set certain gamers to asking the now-immortal question: "when are we getting a new SSX?"

It's one I've found myself asking before for the last few years around this time, but its a question that's picked up more steam this year as the rumour-mill started its slow turning and the franchise name nibbled at the occasional column inch, suggesting something was happening.

And what we got on Saturday was, well...something. It was a cock-tease of a logo flash in the opening montage, followed swiftly by confusion as the first trailer rolled in.

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To use the old adage, this isn't your Daddy's SSX. I can imagine the footage was met with the same confusion that greeted Keanu Reeves when he swapped the floppy hair and light-heartiness of "Ted" Theodore Logan in Bill & Ted for the stocky and serious Jack Traven in Speed.

SSX: Deadly Descents was, as more than one commentator tweeted during the show, SSX does Black Ops. It was an easy comparison. We came in expecting neon tracks and cartoon boarders with attitude. what we got was a black bag over the head and chucked into a night-time drop down the Himalayas mid-snowstorm with a lone and masked snowboarder.

A bit different, and as these things go, it ignited arguments between audiences and even the critics. Hell, even I felt a sag in my stomach when I saw the footage. But chewing over it the last day or so, I figure it's the only way EA could possibly go with the franchise - it's a victim of the market.

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Now, I'll prepose this by stating I'm aware this was a solitary trailer with no gameplay on show. Things can change as more details come to light, but the tone of the VGA trailer was unmistakable.

In the run up to the Awards sources had been quoted to claim of SSX's reappearance that it was going back to its roots, and if you look back right to the start if the franchise's gestation, you'll note that before the Uber tricks, labyrinth track structure and the afros, the original SSX, a launch title for the PS3, was a pretty damn decent snowboarding title, pure vanilla with little in the way of excessive trimmings.

But what you also got to remember is it was also the title to launch the EA Sports Big label, and the series cracked out two fantastic sequels on the brand. SSX Tricky and SSX 3, which both amped up the tricks-element, the bigger-than-life characters and introduced some neon-emblazoned down-mountain tracks that were nicely distinct from the others and gradually increased in complexity and difficulty. The third entry also brought in the three-peak free-form mountain range which could be boarded down in its entirety.

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Despite quality production, On Tour, two years after 3, failed to build momentum, and the Wii-only SSX Blur two years later saw the magic the series once hold slowly disappear. The series hit the downwards slope of diminishing returns.

Blur would also be one of the last titles on EA's Big label. A year later, BIG was changed into Freestyle, which EA tagged as identifying its titles that were "playful, inclusive, casual, and easy to pick up and play for kids and parents, women and men, and casual and hardcore sports fans of all ages." As anyone that cracked SSX Tricky's Alaska course will tell you, these aren't words you'd use to describe SSX's closing challenges.

It's been three years since SSX Blur, and while the series lost the vigour and zeal over the latter two sequels, but at least compared to the likes of Tony Hawk, SSX retained some diginity as it disappeared into the ether, avoiding clogging the shelves with yearly releases. It's exited the games race with good grace, and has slowly built itself back upon on gamers' fond memories in that time - most name-checking a next-gen Tricky as the embodiment of gaming perfection. But it was never going to be that. Because that's not the safe bet these days.

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Do you know the last time a EA Sports title tried the cartoon O.T.T sheen that SSX was cannoning towards in the early days? 2008's Facebreaker, a boxing title that scored badly and sold worst. The visuals were slick, the style killer, but it barely registered. the newly named-Freestyle wouldn't be burning up the charts any time soon.

Now, couple this with a franchise's need of restructure in coming off the retirement block, and add it together with today's trend of gaming, where semi-realism is a lot more marketable than bright primary colours. Tony Hawk's series is nearing retirement with its attempt to re-connect with its once-young market, and the nearest success EA has had with the extreme sporting market is the Skate series.

EA know the power of the SSX brand, and wouldn't look at anything less than a Top Three best-seller, and something that could set up a new generation franchise. The game that EA is suggesting with the trailer isn't a BIG title, nor a Freestyle one -those sub-brands are too small.

The atmospheric and moody trailer, and its nod to potential game mechanics - direction altering and life-saving ice picks along with free-fall wing-suits - would attract a bigger audience, and hell, even older fans looking for something new. And the numbers game hold a lot more swing. Reinvention is a necessity.

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The trailer wasn't without its nod the franchise's history. The chopper transporting the long snowboarder is emblazoned with the name and figure of Elise, a fan-favourite of the earlier games. We're in an age were developers give your avatar priority over any in-game character, hence the nameless figure in the trailer, offering a spin on EA's classic tagline: "you're in the game".

I'm sad as any other not to see an O.T.T trailer in the tradition of past glories. I really think the industry could do with some lighting up and remember its sense of fun. But I understand the need for change, and will be interested to see what this new-age SSX brings to the gameplay table. if it can capture the isolated thrill of drifting down a side of a mountain that was so brilliantly captured in SSX 3, I won't mind that Billy Zane isn't crying out catchphrases as I do so.

Besides, while Bill & Ted was great, Speed was pretty damn awesome too.

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