SSX Blur designer: “The game has been Wii-i-fied”

We’ve shown you the screens, hooked you up with the gameplay vids, and gave you an idea on how the control schemes work. As its release date nears (February 27), SSX Blur, is looking to live up to the critical acclaim of the snowboarding franchise. Recently, EA Montreal‘s lead designer, Eric Chartrand sat down and revealed what you could expect from the game and what are the new things it has in store for us all.

He mentions that this is a new take on the game, but lots of inspiration were taken from the best tracks from a few of the tiles in the series. Characters like Mac and Elise and the Happiness track are all in the game, but with a new control scheme, don’t be surprised if you feel like you’re playing it for the first time. He also pointed out the game’s style changes by saying:

The game has been completely Wii-i-fied. As addressed previously, in addition to the characters, the mountain has also been overhauled with new textures and lighting.

When he said that the game “has been completely Wii-i-fied”, he isn’t only talking about the controls. They also made use of the Wii’s internal speaker to produce non-repetitive sounds. Aside from that, the pointer of the remote could also be used as pointing device to select and navigate. Too bad that Nintendo is still cooking up the Wii’s online gameplay, so don’t expect any online play goodness. There are, however, two types of offline multiplayer modes – a two-player split screen and a turn based “hot seat” for 1-4 players.

As for other details about SSX Blur for the Wii, it will have support for 16:9 and 480p. The engine may have been just a modified version of SSX On Tour, but the framerate has been improved to 60fps in single play. As for their future plans on the SSX series (a PS3 or Xbox 360 version), this is what Mr. Chartrand had to say:

At this time we’re just focusing on the release of this game. Once we’ve wrapped on Blur, we will turn our attention to the future of the franchise.

Via IGN

We’ve shown you the screens, hooked you up with the gameplay vids, and gave you an idea on how the control schemes work. As its release date nears (February 27), SSX Blur, is looking to live up to the critical acclaim of the snowboarding franchise. Recently, EA Montreal‘s lead designer, Eric Chartrand sat down and revealed what you could expect from the game and what are the new things it has in store for us all.

He mentions that this is a new take on the game, but lots of inspiration were taken from the best tracks from a few of the tiles in the series. Characters like Mac and Elise and the Happiness track are all in the game, but with a new control scheme, don’t be surprised if you feel like you’re playing it for the first time. He also pointed out the game’s style changes by saying:

The game has been completely Wii-i-fied. As addressed previously, in addition to the characters, the mountain has also been overhauled with new textures and lighting.

When he said that the game “has been completely Wii-i-fied”, he isn’t only talking about the controls. They also made use of the Wii’s internal speaker to produce non-repetitive sounds. Aside from that, the pointer of the remote could also be used as pointing device to select and navigate. Too bad that Nintendo is still cooking up the Wii’s online gameplay, so don’t expect any online play goodness. There are, however, two types of offline multiplayer modes – a two-player split screen and a turn based “hot seat” for 1-4 players.

As for other details about SSX Blur for the Wii, it will have support for 16:9 and 480p. The engine may have been just a modified version of SSX On Tour, but the framerate has been improved to 60fps in single play. As for their future plans on the SSX series (a PS3 or Xbox 360 version), this is what Mr. Chartrand had to say:

At this time we’re just focusing on the release of this game. Once we’ve wrapped on Blur, we will turn our attention to the future of the franchise.

Via IGN