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SSX: Deadly Descents EGM Details

gondee

Member
EGM Article on SSXDD is out.

Summary

  • Rewind Feature
  • 17 regions spread across the whole globe, each mountain ridable in all their 360º degrees of slopes, Stoked style. They're aiming for 70 open mountains. Mountains are generated automatically by the game, including some from topographic data like Google Earth. The producer talks about his programmer asking him to name any mountain, the producer said "Everest", the tech guy plugs that info into the mountain building program (dubbed "Mountain Man), and the program spit out a 100,000+ polygon rendered mountain.
  • Regions confirmed so far: Siberia, Himalayas (split into two mountains it would seem, for now), Kilimanjaro, Siberia, Caucasus, The Alps.
  • Each mountain is tailored to one kind of danger. Thin air, ice, temperature, will each be the main danger of one mountain range.
  • The gear you purchase/earn will be important, each piece may be better to a certain condition/danger.
  • Elise is returning. Start guessing who the guy in the trailer is (or it could be a new fella...)
  • There will be tracks in the game. They have natural shortcuts (this can mean the tracks could have the feel we're used them to have, the ramps, turns, etc, etc), some of the runs are pinched together, some others intersect.
 
gondee said:
EGM Article on SSXDD is out.

Summary

  • Rewind Feature
  • 17 regions spread across the whole globe, each mountain ridable in all their 360º degrees of slopes, Stoked style. They're aiming for 70 open mountains. Mountains are generated automatically by the game, including some from topographic data like Google Earth. The producer talks about his programmer asking him to name any mountain, the producer said "Everest", the tech guy plugs that info into the mountain building program (dubbed "Mountain Man), and the program spit out a 100,000+ polygon rendered mountain.
  • Regions confirmed so far: Siberia, Himalayas (split into two mountains it would seem, for now), Kilimanjaro, Siberia, Caucasus, The Alps.
  • Each mountain is tailored to one kind of danger. Thin air, ice, temperature, will each be the main danger of one mountain range.
  • The gear you purchase/earn will be important, each piece may be better to a certain condition/danger.
  • Elise is returning. Start guessing who the guy in the trailer is (or it could be a new fella...)
  • There will be tracks in the game. They have natural shortcuts (this can mean the tracks could have the feel we're used them to have, the ramps, turns, etc, etc), some of the runs are pinched together, some others intersect.
All of a sudden Ginger Afros don't seem so important?

As for a guess of who the guy in the trailer is - Nate, perhaps?

Consider my interest piqued. Thanks for posting.
 

skip

Member
and before anyone freaks out about "real" mountains not being any fun, as you'll read in the EGMi companion piece, they're very aware about "SSX-ifying" the tracks after they've been generated from the topography.

also:
there will be colors
 

V_Ben

Banned
Wow, people got their EGMs already with that article? I'm still waiting for last month's issue! :lol
 

Struct09

Member
Got my EGM the other day, and the article didn't make me feel any better about the game :(

Still hope it's going to be fun, but I'll inevitably miss the style of the old SSX.
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
gondee said:
EGM Article on SSXDD is out.

Summary

  • Rewind Feature
  • 17 regions spread across the whole globe, each mountain ridable in all their 360º degrees of slopes, Stoked style. They're aiming for 70 open mountains. Mountains are generated automatically by the game, including some from topographic data like Google Earth. The producer talks about his programmer asking him to name any mountain, the producer said "Everest", the tech guy plugs that info into the mountain building program (dubbed "Mountain Man), and the program spit out a 100,000+ polygon rendered mountain.
  • Regions confirmed so far: Siberia, Himalayas (split into two mountains it would seem, for now), Kilimanjaro, Siberia, Caucasus, The Alps.
  • Each mountain is tailored to one kind of danger. Thin air, ice, temperature, will each be the main danger of one mountain range.
  • The gear you purchase/earn will be important, each piece may be better to a certain condition/danger.
  • Elise is returning. Start guessing who the guy in the trailer is (or it could be a new fella...)
  • There will be tracks in the game. They have natural shortcuts (this can mean the tracks could have the feel we're used them to have, the ramps, turns, etc, etc), some of the runs are pinched together, some others intersect.
Honestly I hope it's cool and I'll be there Day One if it's getting lots of good buzz but the tech seems totally pointless. Just make good courses or I'll start calling this Hellgate: SSX.
 

LaneDS

Member
Looking forward to hearing (and seeing) more. I think SSX3 perfected the formula they had going so I'm more than alright with them changing things up for this one. Teaser didn't bother me (or excite me either).
 

Victrix

*beard*
Procedural terrain is fucking boring

I'll eat my hat if any of these mountains are more fun than handmade tracks

(I do not own a hat)
 

gondee

Member
_dementia said:
so no guns? reassuring.
The funny thing about everyone calling it SSX Black Ops or Modern Boardfare or whatever is this quote from the creative director of SSX: DD, Toddy Batty.

"At what point would it feel like if we created levels and mountains and descents that were so harrowing you could actually die?" (Batty likens it to traditional combat games: "If you think about action adventure games and shooters...

So -- he's comparing it to Modern Warfare himself? :lol
 

Haunted

Member
Mountains are generated automatically by the game, including some from topographic data like Google Earth. The producer talks about his programmer asking him to name any mountain, the producer said "Everest", the tech guy plugs that info into the mountain building program (dubbed "Mountain Man), and the program spit out a 100,000+ polygon rendered mountain.
I like this, but then why talk about 70 mountains? Shouldn't there be an infinitely higher number of possible mountains with automatic generation?


Victrix said:
Procedural terrain is fucking boring
Minecraft and Subversion say hi.
 

AstroLad

Hail to the KING baby
Victrix said:
Procedural terrain is fucking boring

I'll eat my hat if any of these mountains are more fun than handmade tracks

(I do not own a hat)
As a long time player of EA Sports games, it honestly sounds like shit they came up with just to for back-of-the-box bullet points. MILLIONS OF MOUNTAINS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

Snowboarding down famous mountains hey that's fine and dandy but don't procedurally SSX them, just SSX them yourselves. People only care about a very small handful of real mountains anyway, so make those and then just make up the rest. That's a pretty regular roster of courses right there.
 
More doesn't always mean better. 70 mountains looks good on paper, but there's no chance in hell even half of those will be tailored to the style of snowboarding SSX is known for.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Haunted said:
I like this, but then why talk about 70 mountains? Shouldn't there be an infinitely higher number of possible mountains with automatic generation?
DVD9 + manual edits making on the fly generation hard I imagine.
 
Do you fire handguns from bumbers or triggers? This is important to me.

edit: OK, one more pun

## Each mountain is tailored to one kind of danger. Thin air, ice, temperature, russian terrorists will each be the main danger of one mountain range.
 

Chamber

love on your sleeve
gondee said:
The funny thing about everyone calling it SSX Black Ops or Modern Boardfare or whatever is this quote from the creative director of SSX: DD, Toddy Batty.



So -- he's comparing it to Modern Warfare himself? :lol
ib0GNa.gif
 

Haunted

Member
70 mountains is a big number, make no mistake. That's more than sufficient for any snowboarding game.

It's just that when I read "procedurally generated", I always think in the biggest possible terms.

Nirolak said:
DVD9 + manual edits making on the fly generation hard I imagine.
:(
 

vatstep

This poster pulses with an appeal so broad the typical restraints of our societies fall by the wayside.
Sounds like a lot of fluff. If they mess with the controls or stray too far from the fun, arcade-like feel of the classics, it will suck regardless of all this crap.

I just want the tracks to be fun — I couldn't care less if they're modeled after real regions or not. I don't snowboard, I've never been within a thousand miles of any of those mountains/ranges, so whether the locales are realistic or not makes no different if they're not fun to play.

And I hope the rewind feature is just something trivial, like being able to retry a jump/trick in certain situations. If it's overdone, it'll feel cheap.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
gondee said:
[*]Each mountain is tailored to one kind of danger. Thin air, ice, temperature, will each be the main danger of one mountain range.

This honestly sounds like one of the worst ideas I've ever heard, but who knows.
 

X26

Banned
The SSX games had these well designed tracks where you had jumps and rails lead from one to another, doesnt seem like this going to be the case this time

A handful of well designed tracks that flow well >>> procedural tracks
 
Until I see some gameplay that proves the SSX spirit is still there from the graphics,to gameplay, to the characters, to course design, I'll remain completely skeptical. So far, these bullet points really aren't doing it for me yet.
 
The gear you purchase/earn will be important, each piece may be better to a certain condition/danger.
I don't approve of this. I bet there is some bullshit levelling up system like in CoD that lets you unlock new equipment so you can shred up the mountain a little better.

The rest sounds awesome, I'm concerned that using Google maps data is the new fashion for games. Doesn't necessarily mean it will be a fun experience to play.
X26 said:
The SSX games had these well designed tracks where you had jumps and rails lead from one to another, doesnt seem like this going to be the case this time

A handful of well designed tracks that flow well >>> procedural tracks
Yeah, it's like they built the game around that bonus level from the original SSX. As refreshing as that was I think a lot of people want designed tracks.
 
I'm sure the procedural stuff is just the way the game will fill out the mountains. I imagine the tracks running down will be designed.

Honestly I don't know why people aren't more excited about this. I think it sounds really good.
 

Stahsky

A passionate embrace, a beautiful memory lingers.
Got the mag in my hands. These concept arts look nice. I'm all for survival games + tricks.


I think.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
satriales said:
Rewind?


I'm out.

Why? Forza 3 had a rewind feature, you don't have to use it if you don't want to. I didn't touch it at all. I don't know exactly how it'll work but I can't imagine it being much different at all.
 
Neuromancer said:
Honestly I don't know why people aren't more excited about this. I think it sounds really good.

Because all people wanted was SSX in HD and this doesn't sound like that at all.
 

wenis

Registered for GAF on September 11, 2001.
AstroLad said:
Honestly I hope it's cool and I'll be there Day One if it's getting lots of good buzz but the tech seems totally pointless. Just make good courses or I'll start calling this Hellgate: SSX.

So do you consider this one of your prophecies? ;)
 

BlueTsunami

there is joy in sucking dick
Tain said:
rewind feature :lol

Bad game design incoming. That or maybe its the opposite of "Hardcore Mode" in Fallout in that the game is tuned correctly but just tough and the rewind feature is there to help along baby gamers (hopefully).

The whole "Each mountain has a specific danger" thing sounds gimicky.
 

Goon Boon

Banned
I wanna play SSX to do sweet flips and race people and shit, not worry about dieing of hypothermia or being unable to breath. Did they forget about how giant fans would propel you into the air in the old games, or the select button respawn?
 

AwShucks

Member
I think there is too much "jumping to conclusions" in this thread. I mean you have a teaser trailer and some small bits of info, but everyone is jumping off the cliff already.

Let's just wait for some gameplay
 

Snakeyes

Member
They still don't get it.

"Hey guys, Elise is returning! Do you like us now?"

Sadly, I think we have another Def Jam in the making :(
 
AwShucks said:
I think there is too much "jumping to conclusions" in this thread. I mean you have a teaser trailer and some small bits of info, but everyone is jumping off the cliff already.

Let's just wait for some gameplay


Theres no such thing as reason on an internet video game forum. Especially when it comes to a beloved franchise now returning. You either hate it completely or you have no taste in video games and you're apart of the problem.
 
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