SSX3

 GameCube, SSX3 (2003) game

As if in sympathy with the distant past when Nintendo made the questionable decision to push back '1080º Snowboarding' for Europe because they didn't think people would buy it outside of the winter months, I found myself wanting a wintry game to play, the colder weather making it more immersive, to tide me over before I had to clear all decks to make way for the Christmas 'Zelda' - I thought a nice, quick downhill racer would plug a gap, but what I didn't realise was the sheer breadth of challenges and achievements that make this game a laster, to the extent I had to share the Christmas holidays between it and 'Zelda' when I much prefer to concentrate on one main game at a time. It's a tribute to it that I actively wanted to get back to finishing Peak 3 when I was playing the most accomplished 'Zelda' to its day, and became a nice surprise for me as what I would call a classic, not something that happens very often, especially with a game I'd never played before, and have no nostalgic ties to. I should say the snowboarding genre in general has always interested me ever since I carved out tracks in the original '1080º,' a great simulation-like racing game. I would also put 'Snowboard Kids,' the 'Mario Kart' of the mountains, in the upper bracket (more specifically for the wonderful multiplayer which I will take to my grave as one of the most special examples of shared gaming I've ever experienced), while the competition to the 'SSX' series on GameCube, '1080 Avalanche' was something of a disappointment (still a good game, but not enough of a leap a new machine should bring).

I'd never played any 'SSX' before, mainly because it struck me as being very trick-oriented and I'm quite a lazy racer: I don't want any distractions from the twitch-gaming of speeding along as fast as I can go, so no manual gears, no boosts and especially no tricks! Okay, so most racing games have accoutrements hanging on their use of some description whether that be a boost meter that needs filling as in 'Burnout' or weapons and other pickups, and I'm not too bothered about all that, but it really is the trick side of things where you have to learn complicated combos (much like in fighting games, a genre I'm none too keen on for the same reason), and bring on early-onset arthritis from all the uncomfortable finger-twisting and button-mashing. In this game's case it would have been a combination of NGC Magazine's positive review and an openness to explore more older games I had the slightest interest in pursuing, partly for the cheap cost, partly for filling in some historical gaps in knowledge, so I'd owned it a few years just for that time I was ready to try it out, and this was the time. It's strange that of the two 'Cube games I played in 2025, one was my biggest disappointment ('XIII'), and the other, this, was the biggest surprise - it's not that I didn't expect anything, but I was pretty sure it'd be a three-star game (good, competent, worth playing), at best, and potentially less if I didn't get on with the tricking side of it.

As predicted, it wasn't the 'pure' racer I would have preferred, with the adrenaline meter requiring filling in order to boost best speed ahead, an essential part of the racing, if not as important in every challenge or event. That was far from my biggest irritation, however: the interface was fine, though you could tell it was a third-party, cross-platform port, just a little clunky in places, the biggest example of this being when you try to save: Quit Game >Yes, Save progress before quitting >Yes, choose a Save file >Done, confirm name >Done, Would you like to overwrite? >Overwrite, Save complete >Continue... That's six buttons to save, not even counting hitting the pause to take you to the menu in the first place! The worst offence is that whenever you go a little way off the beaten track you're told you're OFF LIMITS and summarily returned to the 'proper' place. This gives the lie to it being an entire mountain for you to skip down freely and causes all kinds of frustration when you merely want to exercise your freedom during the search for collectable snowflakes dotted about the landscape and you're constantly told off for exploring! Then there are more minor issues such as the computer voice saying "M-comm" every time you hit the Start button to choose options from the pause menu. It's not necessary and while it may sound pedantic and irritable, when you're redoing a challenge over and over and have to keep restarting you really don't need any extra irritation!

These were among my bigger gripes, but right from the off I was annoyed by the music (quickly turned it over to the ambient sounds of the mountain, much more serene and realistic), and especially the obnoxious characters spouting inane dialogue - you could say it's an age thing, but I wouldn't have thought any better of them twenty-odd years ago when it came out! Again, I turned speech down to 0, but then when you do win and a rival has something to say, you miss the dialogue because there are no subtitles. Even the way characters start off (other than in races where they're eager to leap ahead), it's from a sitting position as if they can't be bothered (I know, I know - if they were standing on the board they'd start to slide downhill, but it didn't help!), and then there's the issue of no trick tutorial so you have to work out what Indys, Ollys and Umphreys (or whatever), are by experimentation of trial and error - again, it's laziness from me, but that's the kind of thing I expected from the game. My guess is that this would be designed to appeal to those with an actual interest in the extreme sport itself (or who'd played the previous titles in the series), not merely a console race enthusiast like me, so you could say it's fairly advanced, with an expectation players will know the ropes. In that case you'd already be well aware of what tricks are called and what's needed to pull them off, but for someone that doesn't, it wasn't very accessible - the same can be said for the 'realism' of having to visit the Lodge, situated on a specific track on each Peak, in order to alter your character, upgrade stats, buy stuff and see Career Highlights goals. It is more realistic to have to travel somewhere to do stuff like that, but it would've made more sense to have it available from the menu.

I will give it credit for its scope and sense of progression, there's a nice RPG element to things where you can pay to upgrade various aspects of your boarder (though the visual side was limited - my character was Mac Fraser and I tried to make him look like Kensuke Kimachi from '1080º,' but couldn't get closer than a similar hat and jacket, but in the wrong colours), and improve your chances in events using money you've earned with tricks and victories, and while I thought it'd be a fairly short game to whizz through, much like '1080' and 'SK' were, there's a wealth of things to keep you occupied. Oddly, the racing part was never my favourite, opponents aren't that difficult to take on once you know the tracks reasonably well and the only challenge is in the boss races when someone throws down the gauntlet - the final race on Peak 3 for example, 'All Peak Race' (a bit misleading since it's only the first two Peaks), can take almost half an hour to get down, and if you lose you have to do it all again, not to mention trying to beat the time to achieve a Gold Medal. Medals are yet another way in which the lifespan is extended: at time of writing I've only managed a 94% completion with one more Freestyle event in which to achieve Gold ('Kickdoubt' - seems impossible to get the 750,000 points or above you need), and five Career Highlights left undone (mini challenges like holding a Handplant for so many seconds, for example). But beyond that there are even Platinum Medals to be won (not that I have the patience and dedication for that - I wouldn't even have realised they went to Platinum except I won one out of the blue!).

In keeping with the 'realism' I mentioned before, there isn't much fanfare when you do beat a Challenge or achieve a Highlight, the onscreen details merely change to an ordinary Freeride and nothing appears onscreen to emphasise you'd succeeded at something, which was quite strange when the tone is so often celebratory with fireworks exploding around you and money racking up. Freeride was actually one of the more pleasing parts of the game, roaming the mountainside in search of routes and shortcuts, and most importantly the snowflakes placed around, some requiring real thought and experimentation since they're just out of reach or up on some line you have no idea how to get to. I found that quite rewarding, especially as you tick off the total on each section, whether it be searching forensically every last anomaly, or stumbling upon the missing snowflake entirely unexpectedly - I spent hours on 'Kickdoubt' (again!), in the caves of Session point 5 where I believed the last snowflake in the level was going to be hidden in the collapsible stalactites hanging from the rocky ceiling, smashed by intense speed and precise control... only to try another time and find it was on the last ledge high above, just before the caves! The satisfaction of ticking these things off was a large part of the attraction of the game, partly because many snowflakes were deceptively easy to spot, making you think it an achievable goal.

The other favoured part of the experience were a number of the Challenges which ranged from slaloming between flags on the track, to the difficult stringing together of named tricks before time runs out. The latter was so tough, but again, so satisfying once success came and all these things eventually bumped the score up for me. It helped that the mountain is attractive, even beautiful at times with much varied terrain and weather effects, the ability to jump to various spots of each section using the Session option, lots of secret routes and dramatic falls or environmental effects, although, much like the hyped avalanches of the latter '1080,' they didn't have all that much bearing most of the time - small and occasional, always in the same place and with little ill effect, you simply ride them down or get pushed over, but I suppose that was all they could really do. It took some time, but the mountain did eventually begin to unfold to me and by Peak 2 I was loving it. It may be that there was just too much to do at the beginning, it takes time to learn the ropes and where to go because although Off Limits happen far too often, there's still a sizeable playable area to speed down. I liked that it had a hardcore sentiment that didn't kowtow to casual gaming, you had to put some work in and it does make me wonder if there's anything similar on Switch that could obviously break out of the technical limitations of that time to provide the definitive snowboarding or mountain experience in general.

Seeing the stats for each section of each Peak and gradually beating each of them was greatly satisfying and the worst things you had to do were probably the most pleasing to have achieved, which gives me hope I may keep going back until I've finally got that ridiculously tough last Gold Medal and the final Career Highlights. It's a game that stood worthy of being my Christmas game regardless of 'Zelda,' which is high praise indeed - it helps that racing is one of my favourite genres, but as noted, the actual racing side of it was rarely that integral or satisfying, nor did I ever get to try the multiplayer which looked pretty comprehensive, so I'm sure if I was regularly playing with others as I did when this was released it would have been a regular contender in the disc drive. Even the fact that many of the Challenges you could discover on a Freeride, depicted by a column of coloured light, would turn a different colour once you'd completed them to show the same Challenge now had a tougher variation, was a pleasing progression, and while I expect 'Zelda' to last a good few months into the year, this might be an ideal accompaniment any time I want a bash at aiming for 100% completion or Platinum medals.

****

Retrogaming Review of The Year 2025

 Retrogaming Review of The Year 2025

The Drive To Carry On
I thought my Amiga days were over, on the 1200 at least, as after 27 years the disk drive began to play up - it'd work for a while, but then stop reading disks, and if you've been playing an X-Com Battleship for the last hour only to be unable to save your progress, it rather takes the wind out of your sails, or the Elerium out of your propulsion system. But thanks to ebay I was able to get a replacement, although my problems didn't end there: the new drive didn't work at all until we worked out it was due to my Amiga being a French model so I had some scary times getting at the motherboard to be able to reach in and snip a copper wire which was preventing the new drive from doing its job. A simple solution, and it worked!

Switching It Up
The other big gaming development of 2025 was the addition to the console family of the original Nintendo Switch! For years I'd had it on the to-do list, but it was thanks to the release of Switch 2 I finally took the plunge into current gaming (they're still releasing games for the original model - technically it's still retrogaming unless I play something just released!). Specifically, it was the generosity of a work mate who upgraded to the new console and gave me his old one (thanks Sam!), so I had no excuse at last to jump into the recent Nintendo catalogue. How exciting! I also got a new gaming screen (Dell 22" widescreen with DVI, connecting through an HDMI-to-DVI adaptor), specifically to play Switch (and wished I'd got an even bigger one), as well as Wii, looking sharper than through my old fullscreen Dell FP2007 (which has started to cut out every so often, most inconveniently). Though I have ever more games I want to play and ever less time to devote to it, it wasn't a bad year for variety with at least a couple of games tackled on all systems: Amiga, N64, GameCube, Wii and Switch, an eventful year all told and one I look back on fondly on the gaming front.

Awards:
Surprise of The Year: SSX3
Disappointment of The Year: XIII
Toughest Nut: Magic Pockets

[Ratings reflect total, historical experience, not just the enjoyment level I got out of them this time.]


January - April: Mario Kart Wii (2008, Wii) - This took some serious work to achieve everything I wanted to do (and I still don't have every track won with the best rating), with the Ghost Time Trials taking up a lot of time and attempts, but I also had multiple multiplayer sessions which is what it's really all about. It's a truly great entry in the series, especially all the connection to the past with so many tracks from previous iterations brought back, but I haven't had quite the same joy as I had out of the last two home console versions with our Christmas holiday fun times and Boxing Day Championships of two decades ago, and while it's the best one-player version with so much to do, it's also not enough to quite make it on a par with the past. ****

January - December: UFO: Enemy Unknown (1993, Amiga 1200) - I thought this long-running tradition of now 23 years was at risk when my disk drive started playing up, I'd been having problems since before Christmas '24, but it still mostly worked, until it stopped, with me at 03/02/18 in game time, but fortunately, with a replacement drive things continued as normal. It wouldn't be a proper gaming year without this (though I do sometimes think about going to Cydonia and ending the game, it's just such a long tradition and hard to countenance not playing it any more, especially as it has a nice, calming effect and a sense of connecting to the past and an oasis of gradual satisfaction on a weekly basis). *****

January - March: Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010, Wii) - Like 'MK Wii' this was a strong game, but didn't have quite the same impact on me as the golden oldies, though it gave a great challenge and kept me going well into the year in quest of all those stars. Sad there's no 'Galaxy 3,' but with Switch now on the roster perhaps 'Odyssey' will be in the not-too-distant future... ***

January - December: WSC Real 08 (2008, Wii) - Much like the real snooker calendar I took a break after the World Championship in May and rarely found myself going back where once I tried to keep the disc turning on a weekly basis, perhaps as other games demanded more completion. Multiplayer in January of a year ago and over the recent Christmas bookended the year, but being No. 1 in the world gave me less motivation to keep going, though I haven't yet maxed out all my stats and there's always the Pool career to take on eventually (not to mention the '09 version of the game!). The only notable thing was sort of getting my highest ever break of 151 since the computer opponent fouled his first shot and then I got a 147 (if foul points counted in a break, which I know they don't, but still a highest score!). ****

January - December: Wii Sports (2006, Wii) - Trying to be more regular (I was aiming for at least every couple of weeks, but it was actually still almost monthly a lot of the time), I did smash my PB on the PB (Personal Best/Punching Bag), going from 56 to 59 after years stuck at the previous best and not even getting close! I also revived my Bowling career and we'll see where that goes and if I can keep it up on a regular basis like the Boxing, which is good exercise, giving it more of a motivation. ***

March - April: Sleepwalker (1993, Amiga 1200) - Close to being awarded 3 stars, but for the technical issues at the end not allowing me to see the completion animation. I was surprised how satisfying it was to go back and complete this, looking nice, not too long, even with such a low score I'd still have to rate this as one of the more surprising games of the year since most others I either expected to be good, or not, and if not for a late entry by 'SSX3' this would have won that category. Nice to continue the recent tradition of an Amiga game at the start of Spring, too. **

April - May: XIII (2003, GameCube) - You shouldn't go far wrong with an FPS, especially on a system not blessed with a definitive example of the genre, but I found this to be awkward, linear and not very engaging, and while it had some occasional beauty (I always think of the leafy hedge maze and gardens towards the end), it wasn't enough to save it. **

May - June: Glover (1998, N64) - Another somewhat disappointing experience, a tough one (this would've had a shot at my new category of Toughest Nut if not for the arthritis-inducing 'Magic Pockets'), and one to keep me trying, but I was never really sold on it - puzzle games have never been a big draw and despite this being as much a platformer, it was a bit awkward and annoying, nor was it enough to merely continue the N64 Summer game tradition of recent years, I expected more from it. **

June - July: Magic Pockets (1991, Amiga 1200) - Now this was hard: a 2D platform game in the no saves style of yore, not even passwords to allow skipping past levels already completed, and unlike 'Aunt Arctic Adventure' of the other year it didn't even have infinite continues to assist, it was pure trial and error, try after try, and so was very satisfying to ultimately complete. At the gorilla fight halfway through there was a time I thought I might not succeed, having spent a couple of hours to get to that point and then being beaten so often, but perseverance pays off and this game of childhood was yet another to finally bow before my belated attempt to crack it. But it was more pain than pleasure, hence the score. **

July - August: The Settlers (1993, Amiga 1200) - I had to get back to a classic, my favourite game of all, after a mix of mediocrity, but it did remind me of the fact it takes so long to get to the winning stage even when the opposition has no chance of coming back, which is less interesting, and the unfortunate glitch of your castle eventually refusing to allow you to take anything out of it once you've got to a certain point in the game (I'm not sure this is due to me giving all opponents maximum stats on everything and myself minimum, it's a theory I'll have to test out sometime as I don't remember that happening in the distant past when I used to play more conventionally), so it's far from perfect, but the visuals, sounds, politeness of it all... well, that is perfect and still stands as my favourite game of all time! *****

August - September: Burnout Paradise Remastered (2020, Switch) - Could have been described as a disappointment since expectations were high, 'Burnout 2' probably my all-round best game on 'Cube and I'd never played another title in the series, while also being my first exciting delve into Switch territory. Which is not to say it's a bad game - it's huge with tons to do (plus a bonus island of more stuff!), but with omission of the integral multiplayer (few years have passed without some 'B2' in that regard), and trying to find everything and work out how to do certain things towards the end it was starting to feel like a chore, but its vast world and countless vehicles, not to mention the exhilaration of whipping about on bikes, made this the best 'disappointment' I could have hoped for this year: a good, solid experience that somewhat showed me what to expect from Switch (I say somewhat as it was a remastered port from earlier systems). ***

October: Operation Winback (1999, N64) - Yet another game I wasn't thrilled with, which is a shame because it's one that had been on my radar since the earliest days of N64 Magazine as a worthwhile one to try out. Took me years to get a copy at a reasonable price, but while there's a good deal of replay value thanks to scoring, I didn't enjoy it's Third-Person Shooting enough to want to go back, not in the near future, at least, and while I was fulfilling another recent tradition of an October N64 game (to commemorate my console's 'birthday,' the month I first got it back in 1999), it wasn't up to others on the system and at this stage I was thinking ahead about trying to clear the decks for the biggest Christmas 'Zelda' ever. **

November - December: SSX3 (2003, GameCube) - Strange that my two 'Cube titles this year turned out to be the biggest disappointment and the biggest surprise! I fancied a racing game so I could plough through quickly before Christmas and devote the festive season to my Christmas 'Zelda,' and that didn't work out, but while I initially had some irritation, this snowboarding game exceeded expectations and once I really got into it, grew on me to the point I realised I really wanted to get back to it to find those last snowflakes or win those races, beat those times and scores, the longevity appealing, the difficulty curve well designed, and while it hung around I found great satisfaction in a number of the challenges within that required repeated effort to beat, turning this from a merely good experience to great, no better expressed than in tearing me away from 'Zelda' on occasion because I wanted to finish those last bits and pieces! And I still didn't do everything by year's end so I suspect it'll be like last year's companionship of 'Mario Galaxy' and 'Mario Kart' together seeing me well into the new year. ****

December: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild (2017, Switch) - It's Christmas. It's 'Zelda.' It's the inevitable Christmas 'Zelda,' one of my major gaming traditions since 2019. But this was... different. Disconcertingly so in many ways (constantly breaking weapons and equipment, no strong theme music, slight control issues), but oh! The sense of going off on an actual adventure is unparalleled: it's like the barriers to progression have been lifted and rather than follow a dedicated story through, slowly building access to various parts of the world and unlocking things through the acquisition of items, you're practically given everything at the start and pushed out into a living, breathing world where you can spend hours simply 'seeing what's over the next hill' or 'I just need to try and follow this coast round a bit further'! It's beautiful, it's vast (still some noticeable pop-up, technical limitations haven't been entirely superceded!), but it's too early to tell whether this will be up with my favourites of the series simply because there isn't that sense of clear progression, there don't seem to be dungeons other than one-puzzle mini versions all in the same theme or style. But you can climb almost anything, leap off cliffs with a Paraglider, the enemies are much tougher and cleverer, it doesn't kowtow to the mores of casual gaming: you literally take on what you feel comfortable with and learn, like in the real world. Biggest complaint is that there aren't enough hours in the day to satisfy the craving for exploration. And yet, at the same time after a few hours you can start to feel jaded since you're not necessarily accomplishing anything, and the map is an ugly black thing with blue lines, and... like I said, it's too early to judge because I've already learnt how to fill in the proper map, like 'Zelda' past, so there's still much to be discovered. I'm sure I'll have much more to say in my full review, but that won't be for some time... ****

Honourable mentions: New year multiplayer 'MarioKart: Double Dash' (*****), 'Burnout 2' (*****), and both starting and ending the year with 'WSCR '08' (****), not to mention a little 'Wii Sports Resort,' namely Frisbee and Golf (only having one Wii Motion Plus meant anything other than turn-based games were off the menu), but otherwise there wasn't much time for side plays, it was all big, serious gaming for me.


Next Year - Still found some Amiga games that worked on the 1200 after the no-go of the 1500 and had a nice even split with my various machines, so in 2026 I'd like to:

- Bring the Amiga 500 down...?

- Play 'James Pond II: Robocod' for my Spring Amiga game

- Maybe do 'Lego Star Wars' for my late nights after matches during the Snooker World Championship

- Keep the tradition of my Summer N64 game going with either 'Wave Race 64,' 'Lylat Wars,' 'Extreme G' or 'Wipeout 64'

- Try something else on Switch (ooh, too many to choose from!), and Wii ('Pirates,' 'Bully,' 'De Blob'?)

- Get back to Game Boy ('Link's Awakening' or 'Wario Land,' perhaps)

- Return to 'Metroid Prime 2' for 'Cube now I can do 60Hz games again with my new screen, before I get to 'MP4' on Switch (perhaps paired with 'Link's Awakening' for Christmas if I ever get to solder a new battery in the cartridge!)

Happy New Year!