I don’t think I’ll ever get over the death of SSX. While EA’s extreme snowboarding series is not officially in the land, there hasn’t been an entry since 2012. Yet the franchise still looms large in the minds of many gamers, including mine. This is especially true for 2001 SSX Difficultan arcade snowboarding game filled with style that has never been matched they have tried and failed a lot. However, the demo for a new indie game Cunning madness it gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, someone might catch on again SSXis greatness.
Cunning madness is not ashamed of the fact that it is a tribute to SSX Difficult. If the name doesn’t give it away, then the Tricky meter and colorful snowflake icons scattered throughout the demo’s single course certainly do. This is not, strictly speaking, a problem and if you are such a big fan of SSX like me, then the overt homage is exactly what attracted you in the first place. But it’s a brave move to take so much directly from your inspiration when you might not live up to it.
The demo, now available on Steam, gives you access to one character in one course. You can try your hand at a clockwork competition or trick competition in the same way SSX Difficult offered competitions and freestyle competitions. The course currently available is a simple snow track down a mountain surrounded by large trees and populated with jumps and rails, very much like an early race track SSX or SSX Difficult. The similarities are so strong that as soon as I started my first run on the course, I was amazed at how much my muscle memory took over.
Switch between Cunning madness demo and SSX Difficultquickly confirming a few things my muscle memory suspected. Cunning madness is a much faster game, not in the speed at which you go down the mountain, but in the speed at which you do tricks. Doing spins and flips feels incredibly fast, which I only had a problem with when trying the game’s equivalent of Uber tricks (which are also called simply Uber tricks here). The problem is that in some ways performing these special tricks now seems too easy, while the slower pace of the tricks in SSX Difficult made Uber’s gimmicks feel like a risky venture.
Also, I can’t get over it Cunning madness‘ current steering wheel controls that are mapped to the left stick. After pressing the A button on an Xbox controller to prepare for a jump, you can’t steer, but instead have to prepare the direction you’ll spin in the air by pressing the d-pad. Switching between the left stick and the d-pad when going from steering to trick preparation is a bit clunky right now, and I long for the ability to both steer and prepare for tricks on the d-pad like in SSX Difficult. This is where the biggest problem lies Cunning madness: the game is felt so much like SSX Difficult that those moments when he deviates from his inspiration become unnerving. But again, this is just a demo and this stuff is very early in development.
The more time I spent with Cunning madnessthe more I appreciated his clear understanding and love for SSX. While the game’s art isn’t as exquisite as that of its inspiration, the demo’s unique course still makes you feel right at home among SSX courses. This feeling becomes even stronger as you fumble around the edges of the course in search of secret routes. I was happy to discover a handful of shortcuts that helped save seconds of my time, and even a hidden half-pipe that gave me the perfect spot to pull off a series of tricks in seamless sequence.
Cunning madness no release date yet, but the full version promises eight full courses and characters (who will be voiced and have unique tricks), a campaign and free-roaming mode, and a voiced DJ to fully impress SSX Difficult experience. After spending time with the limited demo, I can’t definitively say if Cunning madness is SSX a successor that we have all been waiting for, but I can say that he gave me hope that he will win this title.
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