I snuck out one Thursday night after work.

Why do so many of our stories start like this?

To be honest the moment I'd got in the car I'd known what I was going to do, but I still pretended to myself that I was going to buy a loaf of bread or that some previously untapped reserve of self control would kick in and stop me. Arriving at a sodden car park in the middle of a no-mark retail estate I shuffled out and soon there was I, standing in the rain with a PS2 in my hands. Reserves of self-control still remaining resolutely untapped.

At first it all felt a bit odd. Despite years of gaming – on the PC - I'd never actually owned a console. Something about not having to update video card and sound card drivers, wait 10mins for installation and 3 months for the first patch to make it playable seemed unnatural. Dirty, even.

You see the PS2 had just been launched, and despite my sarcastic remarks about it looking like the 2001 Monolith with a 1980s Ford Escort body kit, it still had something of an appeal. Its was (relatively) cheap and promised everything I wanted, (just a quick in and out in the DVD drive - and hopefully... an immediate thrill).

There had always been some valid reason why I shouldn’t go down the console route, something would stop me. In the case of the PS2, 'something' was of course that launch line up, or as 1UP puts it ...'Dead Or Alive 2 Hardcore, Tekken Tag Tournament, Ridge Racer V, tons of swill'.

So what was it that finally swayed me? Three letters...

S.S.X.

Fuckin' get in.

This was an odd purchase for me. I had no interest in Sims, Sports, Snowboarding or Sport Sims about Snowboarding; but something about it just felt right.

This blind faith was rewarded when I put it in the drive. Indeed, SSX did everything right from the from the first game. It looked great, had a completely intuitive control scheme and everything about it sounded awesome.

I still remember the first time I heard the noise the board made on the icy runs - it has to rank up there with the sound of the machine-gun in Halflife in the pure aural/dual shock satisfaction stakes.

"Call yo' Momma in the room and show her how good you are!" it screamed at me, and I would have done... had I not been 29 and living on my own.

The SSX games are right up there with Rez and Lumines from a sort of 'euphoria from sound interactivity' point of view.

Don't believe me? Just look at the way the music falls away as you launch yourself into the clear blue sky leaving just the ambient noise of the mountain - only to come crashing back in to the mix when you land.

Music not pictured.

Inevitably sequels came and went.

SSX Tricky took the format and added 'wacky'. But for every mistake they made, (orange Acid Jazz Afro's, tracks inside icebergs that had been towed to an exotic beachhead.... riiiiiight), but unlike say Amped they never forgot it was a actually game. The same followed for SSX3 which was sort of more of the same, albeit slightly more 'real' looking, and by that I mean it added some nice graphical touches ('look... sparkly snow !!!'). The fourth iteration (or 'On Tour' as its known) still does the job - but to be honest the inevitable EA law of diminishing returns might have now have set in. (Do I REALLY have to create-a-character first ?!),

Still, some things are always cool, though.

Just as long as you do as your 'Momma' says and stay away from the yellow snow.

May 2006

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