SSX Blur

So I finally got SSX blur for the wii today. The game looks very slick, has upbeat music, and a decent tutorial. So far I've played it for a couple hours, doing the tutorial, doing normal races and half-pipe and everything is good.

Well, I guess I should dive right in to how the controls feel since this is the most disputed aspect about the game. They are phenomenal. I admit that it took me maybe 10 minutes into the tutorial to finally get the hang of it but once I did, it was a beautiful thing. Using the joystick as a slight turn and the tilt of the nunchuck as a larger turn (carving) is the most natural of things. All you really need to do to get good at these controls is to actually do the tutorial. Simple as that.

The uber tricks are uber awesome as well as uber easy as soon as you know what it wants you to do. You really just have to draw the shapes slowly at about a foot diameter. Making sure that the top of the wii remote and the nunchuck are facing up with respect to your shape is essential. Keeping this in mind, some ubertricks are more easily done on their side, which you can do by tilting the controllers to their sides.

I can't stress enough that you take your time with making the shapes. Use a full second to do an uber trick an you're good to go. In the half pipe I managed to do a dozen uber tricks in a row, showing just how easy it is to pull one off.

The easiest uber trick for me is the heart shape since it is uniform motion by both hands and a familiar enough shape that you can draw it without making mistakes. The double zig-zag is also easy, along with the single one (which I do on its side to reflect a half of the double zig-zag).

The courses are well thought out (although supposedly some are recycled from previous games, which I haven't played) and feel really good to carve down.

If you were sitting on the fence about getting this game because of the controls, wait no longer. Run out right now and get this game. Seriously, all it takes is half an hour to an hour to perfect the basic mechanics of the game.

The only negative point I can find so far is that there is the very rare occurrence of a drop in framerate momentarily. This only happened about 3 times during the two hours of play and only for about half a second each time.

9/10

This might really deserve an 8.5 but I gave it a 9 because it makes you feel so good about yourself with the groove-tastic music and "good Job!" positive comments even if you place last in a race. :P