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SSX Community Demo - Archived, Psymon Revealed, Demo Coming [Zoe Revealed]

vix

Member
And that makes me hopeful that a sequel will fully return the series to it's glory if this game does well enough for them to see it's marketable and they ignore Peter Moore.
 
Still not digging the character designs so far, still looks not "SSX Tricky extreemmme funky" enough. Too realistic.

Everything else looks pretty good though. I hope they bring back the SSX3 character customization. Silver metallic suit Moby with halo, horns, snazzy sunglasses and flaming hands for the win. note: I don't mean character creation from the ground up, I just mean putting different outfits and accessories on IP characters.

The point of going to all the mountain ranges is cool, but if it's all nature, it will get boring. We need to see some stadiums with extreme halfpipes, race events with glass neon signs and fireworks, and little villages and such that you ride through on your way down the mountains.

Todd Batty said that they consider Tricky and 3 to be the pinnacle of the series, so my faith is being restored more and more.
 
The main menu needs some effects. It's very bland at the moment with that dark green background. Depressing.

Here's how to fix it:

Have snow effects covering the background, snow flowing in the wind, etc.

I hope you're reading this dev team. Plz.
 

Bildi

Member
Thanks a lot for the info soultron. We're very thankful for any info from an SSX fan, even if it's just "X & Y are looking great".
 

soultron

Banned
Bildi said:
Thanks a lot for the info soultron. We're very thankful for any info from an SSX fan, even if it's just "X & Y are looking great".
No problem. I was picked to represent NeoGAF, so I figured one of my duties was to relay back what I could. I will do another informal write up on tomorrow and pass it through the EA community manager, but I will give some short thoughts before I go to get trashed at the bar.

We played the demo. This is a bold statement I'm about to make here, but the demo's physics make the old games really show their age. The new physics engine is the star of the show for me. It's what makes it next-gen. Connor (gameplay producer) lead us through things in the beginning, just so we could take things in and acclimate ourselves. After that, we were free to our own devices. I had an absolute blast. You really can't communicate how great the physics feel (or how great the sound design is) when you're stuck watching videos -- that's why I'm excited there will be a demo for all of you guys to play.

Things are showing so much potential and polish already, and the game isn't even feature-locked.

We saw a lot of stuff today, and spoke with lots more of the dev team. Todd and Connor spoke lots with us and ensured us the point of this trip was feedback from the community. We gave lots. So rest assured, we weren't just kissing ass. Though the game was really fucking awesome, so we did a bit of that here and there.

Will go into more specifics when I can get my write ups cleared.

Lastly, I cannot wait for you guys to see what we did. You will be hyped.
 

soultron

Banned
Also, I'll have you know that I represented GAF properly in a highscore Trick It competition. Won second place, being beaten at the last second by a mere thousand points! Booyah!
 

soultron

Banned
-bakalhau- said:
Who won? Unless that is under NDA too.
A fellow from the UK, I believe.

I'm surprised that I placed, to be honest. Haha. A few of us watched Connor show us his 200+K run (him and Todd are tied for the highscore on the Trick It E3 demo... with 240000 points. That's insane.) and I just improvised my own best line from that. Got to 122K. It's amazing to see Todd and Connor having such highscores in a demo area that can be shredded through really quickly if you're a boost-heavy player. Chaining grabs, grinds (on the Great Wall pieces!) and boosting to FLY off natural terrain formations to catch 4+ seconds of air was my key to victory.
 

soultron

Banned
Zabka said:
Well they've pretty much won me over. If the demo is good I'll make sweet love to this game.
You'd be pretty sold on the E3 demo, to be honest. It's amazing to imagine what the general public's demo will be like since it will have a lot more polish by that time. But, again, from what I'm allowed to say, the demo already felt great.

Again, the physics engine is what makes the difference. I hate to use the cliche term, but it's truly a "next-gen" experience.
 

soultron

Banned
Oh, another thing, don't worry about level design. I believe his name is Thomas Munroe, one of the level design leads, and he's incredibly talented. Seeing his work and listening to him talk level design really gets across the point that he knows why and what makes SSX as a franchise fun. Him and the other designers are doing a great job of really shaping the environments into fun representations of their real-life mountain counterparts.

You're going to be blown away when you see more.
 

soultron

Banned
-bakalhau- said:
I can't come up with anything else to say in this thread until you post more hands-on impressions.
What would you like to know specifically?

The NDA binds me from commenting on certain things, but I will do my best to answer specifics. Again, I was here for you guys, so I'm eager to relay back the info that I can right now. Also, when certain embargos are lifted, I will be updating you on that stuff too.
 
Don't know, I was really just waiting for another big post from you, whenever that could come due to the NDA.

I really loved the progression SSX3's mountain. Tracks got progressively less open, more dangerous, a sort of beautiful destruction. Along with more agressive weather.

Stoked's dynamic weather was great. Heavy snowfall would increase how much snow there was in the mountain, covering potentially dangerous rocks, and when it was sunny and 'hot', snow was thin which made landing on certain spots harder because it was pretty much rock covered with a thin layer of snow.

Dynamic weather would be so incredible for this game. Hopping between mountain ranges checking how the weather differed would be awesome. Just imagine how heavy snow could affect stability ratings. Etc, etc. They have included a lot of different stuff for deadly descents - from fog to yup, snow falling heavily.

- Is dynamic weather something they've considered?
- Have they added or are considering adding weather to certain events beyond DD?
- Guessing you have seen more than just the E3 demo, how is mountain progression from top to bottom? Steeper, thin paths at the top, wide, really open deisgns near the bottom?
- Are mountains REALLY open? I still don't get this. Todd says they are, but 5 minutes later I just hear him say each drop point is a track and a track means it not open? I really don't know anymore.
- Free roam. You knew this one was coming. I just want to ride, aimlessly.
- Are they planning something else to do than just events? I loved how you could search and explore for collectibles and do mini games with BIG Challenges in SSX3. Collectibles particularly make sense, as they could provide a completion rating for each mountain on top of completing events.
- Day/Night cycle. Heard anything from this? If not, what would be your guess (and guessing isn't part of breaking NDA think) about this? I loved how each track looked unique in SSX3, I'm fine with no day/night cycle, but I'm jusr curious.
- 'Lodges'. Unfortunately I don't think these will be in the game, but I just loved riding and seeing and entering these. I loved how they had indications for each event's path. My question is if there will be a hub to buy things, as we earn cash. More than equipment, do they plan to add concept and character art, videos, new uber tricks to buy, etc to the 'Lodge'? They felt great to - Is the MENU HUD a WIP too? We know gameplay HUD is, I'm wondering if menus are too

If you don't know an answer, just give me your best guess.

Edit: One more for now! How did you get started on SSX, did you ever hang on Merq City and if yes, what was your username there.

2nd one: - Is the MENU HUD a WIP too? We know gameplay HUD is, I'm wondering if menus are too. I know the google earth thing is final, but the menus need ome SSX flair.
 

soultron

Banned
I can't really go in detail right now because of the NDA, and I have a 7-hour flight, but I'll do a short burst for you.

Look at the E3 demo. The Survive It avalanche stage has night time lighting in it. :]

Frand Vitz, the visual effects director, is really passionate about what he does and would love to read your post.

Again, Frand and the team, from what they said, want the front end menu to be interactive and fun to use. Noone who spoke about it (mostly Todd) wanted players to be wading through nests of list-like menus. It might not be final, but it looks and works great.

Freddy Ouano, whom I believe is the audio lead producer, spoke with me about the music during this menu sequence. I told him "MAKE SURE IT'S IN THE FINAL GAME!" Because it's incredible, it layers on more the deeper you gp into the front end menu, and really just makes you look at the Globe and say, "damn, I feel really small right now compared to this beautiful planet we live on!"

Gotta board my flight. Will update more when I can. Hope you enjoyed some of this info, bakalhau!

Oh, and Gondee came away really impressed too, btw. :]

EDIT: More corrections to team names and positions. I blame sk88z if they're wrong! Kidding, sk88z! :p
 
All info is welcome. Except the one saying you have a 7-hour flight in which I will have no SSX news to feed on. Boy am I getting hungry already.

I'm interested in the enu music. Reminds me of the SSX3 one, each part had a different way the song played, it definitely was awesome. SSX3 was a huge step up from Tricky in various ways.
 
soultron said:
I can't really go in detail right now because of the NDA, and I have a 7-hour flight, but I'll do a short burst for you.
I can't believe you didn't ask about DJ ATOMIKA... you are dead to me, sir. D E D.
 

soultron

Banned
legbone said:
cool, kilimanjaro (sp?) was just a slice according to developer.
The entire thing was geared towards being easy to present to the press, due to time constraints at E3. They had to do a lot of presentations every single day and wanted to show each of the 3 different game modes.
 

soultron

Banned
SolidSnakex said:
That's only supposed to happen on that one deadly descent. I still don't like it since it seems very easy to lose sight of where you're.
They will tune the camera properly, don't worry.

I get the feeling they want you to see the avalanche. Having awareness (especially if you don't have a surround sound system) of where the avalanche is, relative to you, when the camera is behind you is a tough thing to do.

If you can't see the snow simulation, there wouldn't be a point of having it in there at all -- they might as well have just made it a scripted event that killed you instantly when it touched you at that. And that wouldn't be fun. They've worked really hard at getting the snow particle simulation looking great, so it needs to be seen. We saw some really neat stuff you haven't seen yet, in relation to the snow simulation, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled as they reveal more stuff pertaining to that particular system.

The avalanche system itself, that one deadly descent (which still isn't final -- remember it's the E3 build, which was purposefully meant to be short so they could show lots of the game's offerings to the press.) had so many different ways to play it. Watching each one of us try it was really neat since people had developed different strategies to tackle it. Some went straight down and tricked so they could keep using boost to stay ahead. Some zig zagged and even jumped over the avalanche. Some hung back behind and advanced slower -- but they were still triggering more avalanches, so they couldn't just stay in one spot! And all of this changes moment to moment, meaning no two sessions will be the same.

Again, this was all with the current E3 build. It wasn't hard to play at all, even with the camera in its current state.
 

soultron

Banned
jetsetfluken said:
Screw it, bring back Rahzel!
If not, Atomika is fine too.
Haha. They're both awesome.

One thing I can tell you is that, as Todd has mentioned before (IIRC, the E3 USTREAM Q&A session covered this), the current helicopter pilot voice is placeholder. Like I guessed, it's actually a member of the dev team. I'm guessing it was Sean or Connor, after hearing them both talk -- and talk about their interests in snowboarding.

Oh, and if anyone cares, Connor, from speaking with him, is really well versed in snowboarding culture itself. I didn't even have to tell him to watch The Art of Flight trailer. He already mentioned it before I got a chance to say, "Dude. Have you seen that shit? It's insane."

For anyone curious about what The Art of Flight is, here's the most current trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh29_SERH0Y
 

Cerberus

Member
^That Art of Flight trailer is amazing.

Will avalanches form in the race and trick modes? And did you get to see any of the other eight deadly descents?
 

soultron

Banned
I'll still have that write up coming. For now, I need to get some sleep. Will bump this thread when the write up is done and cleared with EA for posting. Thanks guys!
 

V_Ben

Banned
Nice work Soultron :p

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Haha nice one, they linked to this topic. Soultron I'm really looking forward to your huge post. If there's anyone's opinion I want to read about, besides from you-know-who, it's you. You can take your time, but I'm hyped just knowing you'll post it one day :D

You-know-who is gondee which runs THE SSX Fan Site on the web, if there's an opinion you guys can trust on, it's his. He wrote a huge, huge post (no new reveals, NDA and stuff) on the game. I'd quote it all but it's too big, here's a snippet. The wal of text is really worth a read though.

http://merqurycity.com/ssx_forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=9103&p=255413#p255413

I can tell you, with all gravity accorded to my position as webmaster of the main SSX fan site for the last 10 years, that this team is trying their damndest to make a game that will usher SSX into the current generation with a bang, and set the tone of future installments in ways that update the series while paying homage to its roots. It's a difficult path to balance those two things, but based on what I saw, I can say they are giving it their best shot. Forget everything you thought when you saw that terrible Deadly Descents trailer, because that is not representative of the entirety of the game. This game is classic SSX 100%, but updated and in a brand new wrapper with features that will make your jaw drop when you finally get to experience them. I know it will do that, because I was Skeptical Sam this weekend, and here I sit converted.
 

Bonk

Member
I have to admit that I am not the biggest fan of the SSX series. I always preferred a more sim-like approach especially the first 1080 on N64 and Amped 2. SSX always seemed more trick based to me. By your impressions could this new SSX be something for me? Thanks!
 

vega435

Banned
jetsetfluken said:
The main menu needs some effects. It's very bland at the moment with that dark green background. Depressing.

Here's how to fix it:

Have snow effects covering the background, snow flowing in the wind, etc.

I hope you're reading this dev team. Plz.

So pretty much SSX 3's menu screen?
 
Bonk said:
I have to admit that I am not the biggest fan of the SSX series. I always preferred a more sim-like approach especially the first 1080 on N64 and Amped 2. SSX always seemed more trick based to me. By your impressions could this new SSX be something for me? Thanks!

I think the physics are much more life like than previous games, from what I've read and seen, all the way down to how avalanches are formed. But it's still SSX and you'll be pulling off rdiculous speeds, stunts, and using boost.

While it may not be realistic, the feeling of playing the game is great no matter what. A demo is coming out by the way.
 

soultron

Banned
Bonk said:
I have to admit that I am not the biggest fan of the SSX series. I always preferred a more sim-like approach especially the first 1080 on N64 and Amped 2. SSX always seemed more trick based to me. By your impressions could this new SSX be something for me? Thanks!
Try out SSX3. It's a really different experience because you can make it your own experience. I sometimes would avoid events altogether and just cruised around.

Will have my write up coming soon. Just getting back to real life here. :]
 

JWong

Banned
jetsetfluken said:
The main menu needs some effects. It's very bland at the moment with that dark green background. Depressing.

Here's how to fix it:

Have snow effects covering the background, snow flowing in the wind, etc.

I hope you're reading this dev team. Plz.
Wow, it's like your a game developer!

/sarcasm
 

Bonk

Member
soultron said:
Try out SSX3. It's a really different experience because you can make it your own experience. I sometimes would avoid events altogether and just cruised around.

Will have my write up coming soon. Just getting back to real life here. :]
Thanks to bakalhau and you. Will try out the demo
 
Really glad Zoe's back - my favorite of the original set - but not wild about the look. Too...I dunno. Neat, or something. (But not gonna get worked up about it since I'm sure I'll get the chance to play dress-up with her.)
 
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