Code Reality: Code Reality - Homepage

SSX is just over a month away, and we’re excited to give our PS3 fans in North America some exclusive content to keep you busy on the slopes. Mt. Fuji, the legendary Japanese mountain will only available on PS3 in North America. The mountain that owns the horizon in Tokyo is packed with six unique event drops. Three race drops and three trick drops will have PS3 players carving down and in the majestic landmark in true SSX fashion – with a complete disregard for the laws of physics. From racing through cherry blossoms to tricking off Torii gates, North American Playstation gamers will have something unique to look forward to when SSX arrives on Feb 28th.

Now a few words from the creative director on bringing back SSX from Creative Director Todd Batty:

“Extreme Sports is a dead genre.” Over the past three years I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this. As a gamer who has been playing for more than 20 years and, as a huge fan of games like SSX and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, it is also something that I refuse to believe.

Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy blowing things up and shooting people in the face as much as the next guy! But spending hundreds of hours with my friends stringing together endless combos in search of the ‘perfect run’ in SSX and THPS is easily some of my fondest gaming memories.

Fast forward nearly a decade and our team is hoping to not only re-launch one of the greatest IP franchises in EA Sports history, but to bring this type of experience back to the forefront of gaming. SSX is a game for gamers.

Arcade games are challenging to design. On one hand, many players expect instant gratification from an arcade title and have little tolerance for an overly steep learning curve. This is actually true of most games today, but is even more important in this type of game. On the other hand, with a shallow learning curve and instant gratification comes the perception (which is often true) that the game lacks depth and is therefore only going to be enjoyable for a short time.

Embracing this challenge from the onset, our team adopted a motto for SSX: “make awesome easy, and make oh-my-god really hard.” Rather than following a more traditional zero-to-hero learning curve, SSX lets you feel like a hero from the first time you pick up the controller. And from there, with a little practice, or in some cases a LOT of practice, you can start to perform like a superhero.

We had three major goals for SSX. The first goal, and where we spent the majority of time and effort with this reboot, was to recapture that core gameplay magic across Race, Trick and Survival events. The second was to build a massive world for players to explore. The third goal was to redefine social gaming on a console with something we call RiderNet.

Race it, Trick It, Survive It

There are three ways to compete in SSX.

Race it is all about bombing down the mountain at insane speeds and trying to find the fastest path down our huge open mountains. Think: Burnout on snow. Beyond that, racing in SSX has always had its own game-changer as doing tricks gives you boost. Your reaction time needs to be lightning quick as youtry to decide whether or not to jump off a huge kickers to earn some valuable boost, or avoid them altogether and stick to the ground so that you don’t lose your speed. When you factor in the coolest new gameplay addition to SSX – a wingsuit that lets you glide high above the terrain for short stints – the level of depth gets even greater.

Trick it has always been the heart and soul of SSX, and this version is no exception. Trick it is all about style and flow, and trying to string together the perfect top-to-bottom combo in order to max your score. In this SSX you can ride everything in the world. Literally. if you can see it, you can ride it. The freedom of trying to grind, backflip, and vault off any piece of terrain means that you’re constantly discovering new tricks and lines on the mountain, even some stuff that we never designed or intended. It’s an awesome feeling knowing that you can make almost any line work if you can find the right angles.

Survive it is something completely new to the SSX franchise. These levels act like mini “boss battles’ where we challenge you to simply make it to the bottom of the mountain in one piece. In game design terms these are referred to as “exciters and delighters” – not meant to be a core part of the experience but something unique and fun to discover hidden among the many awesome race and trick events. Here you will battle different environmental challenges on nine of the most iconic mountains in the world. These challenges range from outrunning and jumping over massive avalanches on Denali in Alaska to riding through perfect darkness in the depths of Kilimanjaro with only a headlamp strapped to your head. Each of these “deadly descents” offers a fresh, and often harrowing, new gameplay experience.

The Massive World of SSX

The new SSX has more mountains than all of the previous versions of SSX combined. The massive world you will explore spans the entire globe and includes nine different regions, 29 unique mountains and over 150 different event drops, each unique in their own way and each offering tons of replayability. If you want to earn a gold medal on every drop in the main mode of SSX (named simply, “Explore”) you will find more than 50-100 hours of fun. And once you start chasing your friend’s records on your favorite drops that number will grow even larger. Much larger.

Ridernet

Finally, we wanted to put competition with friends at the absolute heart of the SSX experience, and we do that with something we call RiderNet. Inspired by Criterion’s awesome Autolog feature from NFSHP, RiderNet allows you to compete against ghosts of your friends best runs, points you to drops where your friends are dominating you, recommends drops based on what you and others like, allows you to share and collect something we call “geotags,” which are user-created collectibles found throughout our massive world, and so much more. We even have a mobile RiderNet application in development that lets you see what your friends are up to when you are away from your console and send them messages, letting you congratulate them or talk a little trash…This SSX was built from the ground up for the connected generation.

We think this game represents the beginnings of a new franchise and the return of an almost-forgotten genre, and we hope that after you get your hands on it you will agree.

SSX lands on the PS3 February 28 in North America and March 2 in the rest of the world. In addition, Sony gamers in North America will be treated to an exclusive mountain that is only available on the PS3 – the legendary Mt. Fuji in Japan. Look forward to seeing you all on the slopes!

Next up on our MLB 12 The Show developer blog tour is our Franchise mode and the improvements coming to players this year. One of our goals going into this development cycle was to enhance the trade logic for CPU teams to better mimic their real-life counterparts. In order to do so, we had to examine the current system and identify the faults to then build and improve upon it. This year we are considering more factors in each trade offer, with the end result being more realistic trades. Teams are valuing their rosters much higher this year, and they aren’t going to ship out prospects so easily, nor will they offer up too many players to fill a positional void. You’ll also see more trades that better suit the teams’ current strategies (i.e. playoff push vs. rebuilding strategies).

Another addition to the trades system is the interface itself. We’ve revamped the trade screen to bring you more detailed information about the players involved and the likelihood of the trade offer being accepted. All of this is aimed at providing more information to help you make sound moves. Here’s a look at this feature on PS Vita. As we’ve said from the start, MLB 12 The Show on PS Vita will utilize all of the core gameplay features found in the PS3 version, and this is no different here!

I know there’s a lot of interest out there about our PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita integration this year so I wanted to make sure I touched on our Cross-Platform Saves functionality. This feature allows you to take your Franchise, Season, and Road to The Show save files up to the cloud where you can then access those files from either your PS3 or PS Vita. You are limited to one file per mode per PSN user account, which can be overwritten as many times as you’d like.

Moving on to other areas of change, we’ve gone back through the player generation logic to bring you more realistic skill sets for the CPU generated players. You will now see more authentic pitch repertoires, with velocities to match, and less overall balanced players (more speedsters, good hitting/average, below average fielding, etc.).

After addressing the player generation issues, we dove into the team lineups and how they slot players. We’ve come up with a more accurate system that better mimics real Major League lineups. This enhancement is carried throughout all of our season-based modes, including Franchise, Season, and Road to The Show. Once again, here’s what this feature will look like on your PS Vita screen!

After we addressed the important player logic issues, we looked at areas of the user interface to further improve your Franchise experience. The Franchise home menu has been enhanced, bringing you more team and league content, including…adding in your next game information, displaying the current standings, and showing you the current league leaders for batting and pitching. These additions aren’t limited to the Major League ball club, and are also accessible to your Triple-A and Double-A teams.

One last interface area we expanded upon was the player card. We’ve revamped the display to bring you more content in a sleeker package. The player card is also now available during games. You can access a player’s card in any game screen that allows you to highlight that player.

As you can see a lot of focus has been placed on improving the Franchise mode experience this year, enhancements that can be found on both PS3 and PS Vita! Don’t forget, MLB 12 The Show for PS3 and PS Vita will be hitting store shelves in just a few weeks on March 6th. Be sure to keep an eye on the PlayStation Blog and TheShowNation.com for more information in the coming days and weeks on this year’s game.

Welcome to The Show!

In Michael Jackson The Experience, you’ll experience the King of Pop’s chart-topping tracks as you draw shapes and tap on both of PS Vita’s multi touch pads to the beat and choreography of the Michael Jackson avatar. You’ll play through 15 HD scenes inspired by Michael Jackson’s iconic music videos and short films, including “Smooth Criminal”, “Thriller”, “Remember the Time” and many more, all with high-definition quality graphics. Master each of those performances and unlock collectibles and rewards, including alternative outfits and special effects. Michael Jackson The Experience will also have song-based leaderboards and an online Dance Battle mode, giving you a reason to to keep playing these classics over and over again.

Gamers and Michael Jackson fans can pick up Michael Jackson The Experience on February 14 in preparation for PS Vita’s launch — and just in time for the release of the First Edition Bundle. Thanks for checking out our series of PS Vita launch title posts this week on PlayStation.Blog. As you can see, we’re eager to see the platform launch!