SSX Blur review

SSX Blur has the best snow ever. It’s a wintry playground with a new and better distraction around every corner, tucked in tunnels through rumbling glaciers and in the cotton-draped branches of the trees. A world that looks this soft and inviting just begs to be explored. And the way you make your mark on this gleaming white paradise is so satisfyingly ingenious, reality – or, at least, lesser snowboarding games – is always going to come a distant second.

It’s all about swooshing through the powder with elegant swoops of the nunchuk, and gripping for dear life while you try to hold it steady as you rattle across a sheet of bare ice. It’s about launching off a small, blind bump and seeing the world drop away on the other side while you paint tricks in the air with the remote.

This has long been an excellent game series, but Blur makes it seem as if SSX has been waiting for something like the Wii controller to let it really spread its wings. Freed from the constraints of analog sticks, it has a looser, more organic feel than you’ll get from any previous SSX. When the game involves carving across curves of snow that can’t be navigated in a straight line, this is clearly a good thing.