Whether you’ve been watching the news, staying inside on lockdown or actually going outside and braving the risk of getting acne under your face mask, I think everybody can agree that it’s been a cruel summer, and not in the fun Bananarama way. (for all of you born after 1995 they’re the ones who did that song). How’s it going everybody, this another From the Vault review of my favorite picks from my personal collection of games from yesteryear.

Anyway, I thought I’d chill things out a bit with what’s probably my favorite extreme sports game, SSX 3. In my opinion it’s better than SSX Tricky, SSX On Tour, and much better than the SSX released in 2012, where you’re constantly reminded to purchase DLC even after doing so. There’s nothing annoying about that at all, EA CEO Andrew Wilson. Nothing.

SSX 3 doesn’t have a story so much as an objective, and that objective is to win races down the various mountain peaks and get the highest scores. The whole game is divided into 2 types events and you can either race or score your way to victory, and winning each event gets you gear and cash. All of these events are spread out over the 3 mountain peaks in the game. You start at the bottom peak and winning your way through there gets you access to the 2nd, and then the 3rd after that. The game is set up to feel like you’re at a ski resort so you’ve got the option to take a ski lift everywhere you go from the pause menu, or if you want it to feel a little more authentic you can board down to the events. Obviously you’ll still have to take the lift to go back up, but whatever but it’s a video game, and not a documentary.

Stopping at the lodge lets you buy things with cash you’ve won, change your gear loadout, or if you’re me and you sprained both your wrists snowboarding and skiing in front of your brother in law, the lodge is where you lick your wounds over 10 pints of lager, laugh at a guy next to us whose voice sounded exactly like Norm MacDonald’s, and fight the urge to regurgitate everything and pass out in front of Mrs Controller and her family at dinner later that evening.

The game has aged really well and I was afraid it was going to look dated after hopping back into it in 2020 and I’m happy to say it doesn’t. Along with all the crazy style is a great soundtrack from artists like The Caesars, Basement Jaxx, Queens of the Stone Age, Felix Da Housecat and more.

The character selection brings back everybody from SSX Tricky along with some new faces as well. You’ve got your flagship characters like Elise, Mac, Moby, and Zoey in addition to all the other favorites, and everybody is cheeky and represents all the different styles of the late 90’s and early 00’s and they have fun doing it. During races you’ll hear the characters teasing or taunting each other or even being encouraging, so it feels like you’ve got this big group of friends who are also competing with each other.

The game has aged really well and I was afraid it was going to look dated after hopping back into it in 2020 and I’m happy to say it doesn’t. Along with all the crazy style is a great soundtrack from artists like The Caesars, Basement Jaxx, Queens of the Stone Age, Felix Da Housecat and more. There’s a radio DJ named DJ Atomika voiced by Mark Hildreth who’ll play these songs in addition to chatting a little bit in between songs and on the way to the different peaks, and it all blends in perfectly with what you’re doing.

There’s also unlockables aplenty and collectibles out on the peaks that will score you more cash, and you’ll use your cash to not just buy different types of tops, bottoms, goggles, hair styles, etc, but you also buy new songs to add to the soundtrack, you buy stat points to improve your performance in events, and you’ll buy new uber tricks to further customize how you want to play. And the tricks in this are just insane.

I can’t name all the tricks here but you’re going to perform all sorts of crazy stunts in the air once you build up your uber meter enough to be able to do your uber tricks, which are these elaborate tricks that defy gravity and physics and probably biology and chemistry in some way. Doing an uber trick gets you a letter and prolongs your ability to keep that meter up. Do enough to spell out the words “super uber” and you’ll get access to do your super uber tricks. Sounds like a big undertaking but with practice you’ll pull it off – I believe in you! The game’s trick system borrows a lot from the Tony Hawk series in that you can do manuals to string along your combo meter, and personally I thought this system was more forgiving than Tony Hawk, though he didn’t have mountains to fall off of or crash into.

So all the previously mentioned things put together makes SSX 3 an awesome game that is absolutely worth your time. If you’ve got an OG Xbox, a Gamecube, or a PS2 you can get it used, or if you have an Xbox One it’s backwards compatible and you can buy it on the Xbox Store, and when it’s on sale there it’s like $5 or less and you’d be a fool – a FOOL, I tell you – not to buy it when it is.