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[saintjules]

SSX creator reveals new snowboarding game 'Project Gravity'

Exclusive: The creator of SSX is working on a brand new snowboarding IP.

www.laptopmag.com

This year marks the 20th anniversary of SSX Tricky, the legendary snowboard game widely considered to be among the best PS2 titles ever. If you were hoping for an official remaster, there is something much more interesting sliding down the pipe.

The executive producer of the first three SSX games Steve Rechtschaffner told Laptop Mag that he is working on a brand new snowboarding IP that shares similar arcade action sports values as SSX.

In an exclusive interview with Laptop Mag, we asked Rechtschaffner if this would be a spiritual successor to SSX, or something a little closer (maybe in name) to it. He highlighted how interesting the concept of a spiritual successor is.

“A lot of things that excite us are creative extensions of experiences that we would’ve liked to create at that time, but couldn’t. But what we are working on is not rooted in the world of SSX.”

“We’re not nostalgic in the sense that we want to bring something back. If we were, we’d be working with EA to create a reboot of SSX. It’s not that at all. We don’t want to be beholden to people’s expectations of where that goes,” he continued.

“But we do want to make this arcadey, amazing-feeling, very accessible, competitive and fun game.”

 

[Trilobit]

I still get a queasy feeling thinking about the SSX trailer for PS3. The uninspired music, the wingsuits.

Hopefully this new game can bring some good ol' fun to snowboarding.

 

[Principal]

Please let it be good!!

 

[Pejo]

Man this makes me miss good snowboarding games.

Anybody play Steep? Was it worthwhile?

My favorite snowboarding game of all time was still 1080 Snowboarding though.

 

[Nikana]

Man this makes me miss good snowboarding games.

Anybody play Steep? Was it worthwhile?

My favorite snowboarding game of all time was still 1080 Snowboarding though.

Steep is a fun little game but its not really the same type of game.

 

[ArtemisClydeFrog]

SSX 2012 for 360 was dope and the music fucking slapped. I'd love to see a new Amped also.

 

[AJUMP23]

Here is something to look forward to. Please be good.

 

[ShirAhava]

Day Zero!

 

[Nikana]

SSX 2012 for 360 was dope and the music fucking slapped. I'd love to see a new Amped also.

The actual boarding of SSX 2012 was great. I just wanted less of the deadly descents and more tracks. Music was indeed fantastic.

 

[Kimahri]

I'm in day one. But "revealing" stuff like this with no screens or video is kinda lame.

 

[Cert.in.Death]

Can they still afford David Arquette and Lucy Liu to voice characters?

Hell, I honestly wonder if Billy Zane has sworn off voice acting after KH’s “something something DARKNESS.”

 

[RoadHazard]

Man this makes me miss good snowboarding games.

Anybody play Steep? Was it worthwhile?

My favorite snowboarding game of all time was still 1080 Snowboarding though.

Steep was awesome. Nothing like SSX though, much closer to a "realistic" experience (although it does have rocket-powered wingsuits and stuff).

Very much looking forward to Riders Republic (i.e. Steep 2).

 

[Ozzy Onya A2Z]

I'll check this out and love the wackiness SSX brings but I'd be lying if Shredders isn't my most anticipated snowboarding game still -

 

[Larxia]

Anybody play Steep? Was it worthwhile?

It really depends what you want from the game.

The good points:
Amazing atmosphere and visuals. Even just walking around in the mountains feel really nice, there's really something to it, you can appreciate the nature and the ambience.

The terrible point:
The game has an awful "g force" system, which is basically a very random health bar. Depending on how you land, it will deplete and your screen will start to be in black and white like in a shooter when you are low health, and you have to completely stop to regen your health.
It's extremely frustrating because it completely kills the fun, you're constantly being held back by this, you will sometime see a huge jump which you would love to take in another snowboarding game, but here you won't be able to because you will die. And in the cases where you don't die, it's still super annoying because the bar will get low after a jump anyway, so you can't really chain tricks and make any lines, you will often have to stop your ride to get your health back.

The level design isn't particularly interesting, because of the g force system like I said but also because it's a lot more "realistic" and mostly off tracks, which has its good points, like huge open world with a total freedom, but also some less good points, like no feeling of well hand crafted tracks that you can really master like in SSX or something.

It's a decent game, and I do like to play it every now and then for its world and atmosphere (especially Alaska, that's my favorite map), but it could have been a lot better.
If you want it for enjoying a winter atmosphere, relaxing free roam and such, you might really enjoy it, but if you go in hoping for arcade scoring, mastering of the gameplay and all, it really won't be it at all, because of the random nature of the gameplay and also how basic it is.

 

[drganon]

I'm cautiously optimistic. We dont have enough arcade style racing/sports games.

 

[TheKillerStove]

If this is anything like Tricky or SSX3, I'm on board (pun intended) day 1. Hell, I'd even take something similar to On Tour, just please, leave the wingsuits and store from the reboot behind. Having a store with limited rotating inventory and randomized stats just felt awful, even without the ability to buy in game currency compelling you to spend money to get the board you want before its gone forever.

 

[MMaRsu]

I wish EA would remaster SSX like they did NFS

Steep is garbage by the way, typical ubisoft half assed attempts at a live service game

 

[regawdless]

Sounds like "were not tapping into nostalgia so don't expect us to bring back the SSX feeling, but we want to capture what was great about it".

 

[Larxia]

If this is anything like Tricky or SSX3, I'm on board (pun intended) day 1. Hell, I'd even take something similar to On Tour, just please, leave the wingsuits and store from the reboot behind. Having a store with limited rotating inventory and randomized stats just felt awful, even without the ability to buy in game currency compelling you to spend money to get the board you want before its gone forever.

The wingsuits in SSX 2012 were so amazing though, I don't get what people hate about it.
There was something super satisfying about being able to switch at anytime between riding, air tricks and gliding, it added even more to the constant non stop motion, I loved it, extremely satisfying.

I really loved SSX 2012 in general anyway, I get that many people don't like the Deadly descents, but it's always extremely exagerated, the deadly descents are some kind of "boss" tracks at the end of each mountain, it's not like 90% of the game is about deadly descents. The core gameplay of SSX 2012 was amazing.

 

[bender]

Codenamed Project Gravity, the free-to-play live service snowboarding game is already being developed by Rechtschaffner and his team at Supernatural Studios.

“We’re not nostalgic in the sense that we want to bring something back. If we were, we’d be working with EA to create a reboot of SSX. It’s not that at all. We don’t want to be beholden to people’s expectations of where that goes,” he continued.

I was a little concerned this would be to SSX what Dangerous Driving is to Burnout, but this sounds entirely worse.

 

[TheKillerStove]

The wingsuits in SSX 2012 were so amazing though, I don't get what people hate about it.
There was something super satisfying about being able to switch at anytime between riding, air tricks and gliding, it added even more to the constant non stop motion, I loved it, extremely satisfying.

The problem with wingsuits, as someone who was hyper competitive with my friends, was that they were objectively better than ground movement. If you maneuvered correctly, you could achieve well over the top speeds you could achieve when boosting on the ground. Combine this with conservatively placed out of bounds barriers, and you could often fly a direct line straight to the finish ignoring obstacles like rocky outcroppings and dense forests. So the gameplan was always to equip a max durability wingsuit with decent speed, find a jump, the fly to the end or as close as it would take you.

Compare that to the strategy inherent to the core gameplay loop of the early games. Your best speed could only be achieved on the ground, but you needed to do tricks to get boost, which meant getting airborne. Also, the terrain on the ground often required breaking the intended routes to shave time off at the expense of getting airborne. So the challenge was finding the optimal line and exectuing it. Having to rely almost solely on the wingsuit to get close to my friends' times killed a lot of enjoyment I had with the game.

 

[Larxia]

The problem with wingsuits, as someone who was hyper competitive with my friends, was that they were objectively better than ground movement. If you maneuvered correctly, you could achieve well over the top speeds you could achieve when boosting on the ground. Combine this with conservatively placed out of bounds barriers, and you could often fly a direct line straight to the finish ignoring obstacles like rocky outcroppings and dense forests. So the gameplan was always to equip a max durability wingsuit with decent speed, find a jump, the fly to the end or as close as it would take you.

Compare that to the strategy inherent to the core gameplay loop of the early games. Your best speed could only be achieved on the ground, but you needed to do tricks to get boost, which meant getting airborne. Also, the terrain on the ground often required breaking the intended routes to shave time off at the expense of getting airborne. So the challenge was finding the optimal line and exectuing it. Having to rely almost solely on the wingsuit to get close to my friends' times killed a lot of enjoyment I had with the game.

Ok I understand it for speed records. I myself did use the wingsuit when I could to save some time, and it was really fun gameplay wise, but I understand it being a problem for someone who want speed scoring the legit way. Maybe additional ground only time challenges could be a fix.

 

[Puskas]

Codenamed Project Gravity, the free-to-play live service snowboarding game is already being developed by Rechtschaffner and his team at Supernatural Studios.

I just want more of SSX 2012, minus the awful deadly descents. An otherwise excellent game.

 

[TheKillerStove]

Ok I understand it for speed records. I myself did use the wingsuit when I could to save some time, and it was really fun gameplay wise, but I understand it being a problem for someone who want speed scoring the legit way. Maybe additional ground only time challenges could be a fix.

Yeah, some sort of classic mode would be fine by me. Keep everything else the same, but restrict the gear slot to either be empty, or keep it to stuff like the flashlight and the ice pick.