Another retro game to look forward to this week’s #WeeklyGameMusic. In a bit of a twist, here’s SSX Tricky‘s mix to the 90’s track, Song for a Dot by Space Raiders, which itself samples from There Goes My Heart Again by Fats Domino. Phew, that’s a lot to go through! Although the original music piece is pretty decent, this writer has a soft spot for the improvements EA Sports BIG made to better fit it’s hyper-fast, trick-driven winter sports game.
SSX Tricky is a (very 90’s) snowboarding game, where comically exaggerated international characters pits against each other to perform ridiculous tricks. And by, “ridiculous,” we mean, “physically impossible.” Performing a helicopter spin? Check. Doing the worm on the snowboard? Yup, check! Using the snowboard as a diving board? You betcha! To further push the arcade nature of the gameplay, performing tricks fills a boost meter than can be used to accelerate the character’s decent down the mountain even faster, for bigger air.
That said, a special mention goes to the game’s dynamic music mix. The soundtrack is programmed to change on nearly every action the player performs. The aggressive contrast between the tension of jumping high into the air and performing tricks — accentuated by the sudden ducking of the background music, leaving only the drum beats — to the release when landing said tricks — which brings in a bombastic fanfare and the return of an even louder melody — is an experience rarely replicated as well in any other game franchises. The whole thing is just an absolute joy to listen to.
SSX Tricky was released on PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, and Game Boy Advance.
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