SSX On Tour

Title - SSX On Tour
Genre - Snowboarding (and Skliing now)
Rating - RP (most likely T or lower)
Platform - GCN, PS2, X-Box
Developer - Electronic Arts
Publisher - EA Sports BIG
Release Date - November 15, 2005

Game Informer pretty much wraps it up easily.

Quote

That's right. It's time to hit the powder yet again. We were excited enough when we got word of this eagerly awaited sequel. But now that we've seen the game in action, we literally can't wait for the snow to fall so we can shred the slopes again.

SSX 4 is all about more. More of what everyone has loved about the series from the start, and more of what fans have been asking for since the games became a hit. We were lucky enough to get to talk with Steve Anthony, the associate producer on the new game. He filled us in on the return to the mountain. "The biggest change for the gameplay this year is the emphasis on speed. In the past, even though you were tearing down the mountain, the player never really got the sense they were in fact going as fast as they were. This year we have built an entire system around speed with various layers of visual and audio effects that will kick in as the riders hit speed thresholds." Footage of the game we saw reflected this evolution. As the skier weaved his way through trees and down the hill, the screen began to blur and we could hear the air rushing by. Launching off a wicked jump took us into the stratosphere, where only the lonely bird cries carried over the mountain wind. It is, to the least, a spectacular effect.

Did we say skiers? Yep. Anthony filled us in. "Skiing has been a great addition to the game this year. We have a unique set of animations around skiing with different grabs, wipeouts and landings. Additionally, skiers will have the ability to initiate skiing specific Monster Tricks." Purists needn't fear, however. All the initimacy of the hallmark snowboard options remain intact. Now you'll just have another choice of how you flex your muscles on the snow.

Customization options don't end with your choice of locomotion. Due to fan demand, there will finally be an incredibly flexible create-a-character mode, allowing you to throw your own boarder/skier up against the best the mountain has to offer. Initiating a challenge will also be easier than before, since the new mountain has been designed for fluidity, flexibility and freedom. "One of the biggest differences this year has been the removal of the connectors pieces that we used last year to move between one track and another. This year, there will be much less of a break in the gameplay as the rider is able to seamlessly move down the mountain. Additionally, we have redesigned the gameplay to incorporate both race lines and freestyle lines within one track just like you'd expect to find on a real mountain." Anthony explained.

As a quality sort of wrapping on the excitement of the new action, there is a new menu system that's original enough to deserve attention. The new menu system is handled via a system Anthony described as the "living scrapbook." Scribbles and doodles fill the book, and new menus look like different pages. While the images are hand drawn, they animate in response to your choices, like your imagination brought to life on the page. Innovations like that are always a good sign in our minds. It shows a willingness to take something like the SSX games and make them even better.

In other words, they added Skiing, and Create-A-Character. The tracks will be both racing and freestyle, depending on which jumps and paths you take. The "connector" pieces of the track where you go to a new race course has been cut shorter and wider, for those all-peak rides with very little to no slowdown in gameplay if you don't want it. They added new "Monster" tricks, which seem to be a step up from the regular and super Ubers. You get a slowdown effect when holding one of these, making bigger spins and flips a possibility.
Also, a change from SSX3's Hip-Hop/Rap theme, On Tour will feature a Rock theme. It looks ugly as sin, but I'm willing to atleast give it a try... I'm not hanging around the menus for too long though. Ick.

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The second On Tour trailer,
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssxontour_trailer2.mpg
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Here is the new SSX 4 Trailer courtesy of Gamespot:
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4trailer.mpg
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Gamespot Article - May 3, 2005, complete with 7 new screenshots
http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/sports/ssx4/preview_6123534.html?q=1&tag=gs_hp_flashtop_bg
~
Zip containing all the images:

http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4.zip

Now, the scans!

http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_1.jpg
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_2.jpg
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_3.jpg
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_4.jpg
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_5.jpg
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_6.jpg
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_7.jpg
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_8.jpg
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_9.jpg
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_10.jpg
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_11.jpg
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_12.jpg
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_13.jpg
http://www.merqurycity.com/ssx4/ssx4_14.jpg
~

A dude I know over at MerquryCity.com made these SWEET trailers for the game.

http://ssxtitan.250free.com/ontourtrailerc.wmv <- This one is ok.
http://ssxtitan.250free.com/titantour.wmv <- This one is cool.
http://ssxtitan.250free.com/ontourvideo.wmv <- Tell me this isn't awsome. I dare ya!

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Update: It has just been reported that Nintendo All-Stars is going to be in the game. Mario, Luigi, and her royalness Princess Peach is going to be hitting the slopes. It seems that the popularity of them in NBA Street V3 was just enough to get them a spot in On Tour. It's not known yet if the trio of superstars are going to be in all 3 systems yet, considering that On Tour has been claimed to not have Online Play unlike the last installment in the series: SSX3, but only time will tell.
For now, we are just assuming they will still be GCN Only.

Article: http://www.easportsbig.com/games/ssxontour/mario.jsp

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More videos:

http://ssxtitan.com/liquidssx.wmv <- How can you royally screw something up, but still make it look nice?

http://ssxtitan.com/onduhtour.wmv <- More awsomeness. Check out the freaky doodles... o_O

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By the way, there's new IGN footage. They describe the game abit, but the real ttraction is the 7 videos they have, one of them being an interview with the creators.

http://cube.ign.com/articles/641/641091p1.html