The whole reason behind Nintendo Wii and its new-gen approach to video games is to make things better – to make games more fun. However, while this might be the goal on paper, in practice, the Wii’s motion-sensing controller hasn’t always “enhanced” the games it has touched, so to speak. For instance, Ubisoft’s launch title, Red Steel, suffered from cumbersome control problems that were in part the fault of the Wii-mote.

SSX Blur represents another genre that the Wii has attempted to revolutionize. Fortunately, EA’s latest Wii title makes great use of the Wii remote, unlike some recent software for the console. However, there are some slight problems with the new configuration EA Montreal – the game’s developer – has fashioned. But despite some odd control design choices on the development team’s part, SSX Blur is a fun and entertaining installment in EA’s franchise and one of our favorite Wii games yet.

If you’ve played any of the SSX titles released on any game console in the last five years, then you already know what it’s all about. Like its many predecessors, SSX Blur is about the basics: speed, big air, pulling off sick tricks and doing it all without slamming into a rock. The franchise is known for its polished look and feel, and Blur continues the legacy.

The game is split up into three peeks, each taller than the last. Spread across the entire mountain are different events: races, freestyles, flag challenges, tournaments and so forth. SSX 3 first introduced the ability to board down an entire mountain once every peek and track was unlocked, and Blur features the same design. In fact, there’s something more recognizable than this design here. SSX Blur’s mountain and track design is a compilation of tracks and levels from past SSX games, including On Tour, SSX 3 and Tricky. EA has redesigned some of these maps to fit them on the new mountain they have formed, but for the most part, throughout Blur, you will be carving your way through environments you’ve already seen if you played any of the recent SSXs.

Level design is pretty solid for the most part, but there is definitely a lack of consistency across the board. Some maps are noticeably better designed than others and are generally more exciting, as well. For instance, the courses from Tricky and SSX 3 tend to be more enjoyable – both visually speaking and speaking in regards to layout – while the ones from On Tour are less so. When we reviewed SSX On Tour over a year ago, we criticized the step backwards in level design, and we have to do the same this time with Blur. Considering this is a “best of” compilation of past SSX courses, we would have preferred to see more SSX Tricky and SSX 3 levels. And what’s with the lack of fireworks? SSX 3, for example, had fireworks going off whenever you hit any kind of ramp, whereas Blur features very few cases where this happens. Sure, it’s only an aesthetic complaint, but the lack of fireworks is sorely missing, as they really added to the atmosphere of past SSX games.

All in all, as far as level design goes, it would have been nice to see some new tracks, rather than ones we’ve already played time and time again.

People that love SSX Blur – there will be many, we expect – will likely argue that the reason EA Montreal opted to use courses from past SSX games is because it didn’t want you to have to worry about learning new tracks on top of learning a totally new control scheme. This could very well be true because there’s a fairly high learning curve in Blur.


Control is actually pretty intuitive. With the nunchuck’s analog stick, you can gradually turn your character in any direction you want. However, turning this way is slow. If you want to turn sharper, you must use the nunchuck piece itself, by tilting it in the direction you want to move. This control ends up working better than any analog stick, though it takes some getting used to. You really feel like you’re controlling your character with your hand, as if you were holding a toy action figure in your hand, manipulating it the way you did when you were a kid.