‘SSX’ Demo Hits Consoles This Week; No Lift Ticket Required

This Tuesday, February 21 will see the long awaited demo for SSX finally drop onto Xbox 360 through the Live Marketplace, with the PS3 demo coming just a day later via PSN.  Our friends in Europe will have to wait one more day to see the demo appear on both platforms.

It looks like the demo will only have Zoe as the first playable character, but will let you unlock Mac by referring a friend. Word is that players will have two tutorials to try out as well as a couple of events – The JT2 event in the Rockies and the Bulldog trick event in picturesque New Zealand. Rumor has it players will even be given a skydiving lesson.

With the demo being online enabled, the Ridernet system will let you try out one of the game’s new modes: Explore. In the Explore mode you will be given challenges based on your performance, and see ghost runs from other online players, as well as tracking achievements and a player’s favorite runs. The new Google-Earth like SSX Globe navigation system and some of the new music from the built in SSX Soundtrack will also be included.

SSX has been a long time coming and fans of the series are eagerly awaiting the chance to get their hands on this new look at the franchise. It appears like most of the series’ previous silly, but incredibly fun tricks, character banter and gear will also be included in this version. The graphics have always been nice to look at in the SSX games, even on the older systems, and the power of today’s consoles really make the mountains open up on those high flying jumps.  Literally breathtaking.

Are you a fan of the series? Have you even played any of the previous SSX games (the original SSX was released in October of 2000, SSX:Tricky in 2001, and SSX 3 in 2003)? Are you going to download the demo?

The full retail version of SSX will be released for the Xbox 360 and PS3 on February 28th 2012.