...spoilering IS a word, spellcheck. Don't be upset!

Actually "spoilering" is not a word. The word you're looking for is "spoiling"

Oh I'm aware of spoiling, but would you consider hidden text 'spoiled'? Since I've applied a spoiler to it I would consider it spoilered, and the act of spoilering it... uh... spoilering. Bad wording but you know what I mean right? If anyone here works on cars we may get a more definitive answer as they 'spoil' cars.

As its not a park bench for the spoilering (unless necessary) :x

- Tree Deadly Descent: Underwhelming too on a lot of levels. The run itself is soooo linear, way too linear in my view. I honestly had hopes, back during development time, it would be so much more than this (like many of the DDs, but I'll get there). I thought you'd take inspiration from Intimidator, I had more of a rush there even after 10 times riding down it than I had on this DD on the first try. And I honestly didn't hold back, I played normally like if it was a race. Oh and I didn't put any armor on to make it more interesting, but it didn't make it any funner to ride down on. I know I can play this game in some major ways, but I don't imagine a lot of people having fun with this one, even with armor. It wasn't spectacular in any sense too - which is something I thought all DDs should be, and is something that, again, I'll get too later.

- Armor: I don't think it should be in the game. It makes things too easy, I believe even for more casual players. It really, really, makes things too easy. I know explore times/scores must've been set with armor in mind, but I'd rather have them scaled back, and have no armor in the game. Why does it regenerate too? Why do so many devs feel the need to regenerate everything in a game? Why not make the armor bar larger? Why not make the bar decrease less when you hit something? When we take a look at an armor bar, we always think "that's how much armor I have". Yet, we have double of whatever is displayed, because it always regenerates. I don't think this makes any sense whatsoever. It's not a dealbreaker, but I'm here to nitpick on everything and everything.


- Rock Deadly Descent: A good one. I did this one without armor too. I think I failed it once (or was it twice?). Regardless, I did have fun with it. It was definitely much harder than Trees, and that was good in my opinion. I liked how it split up in two paths. It was linear too, but the challenge was much greater. I think rocks just provide more of a challenge, so being linear in this case is not so bad. I had more expectations for this one too though.
- Health: I understand the need for the Health mecanic. I just don't really know why it has to regenerate.


- Darkness Deadly Descent: I didn't try this one without headlamp. I'm gonna do a run right now. That was better than with the headlamp on. It also allowed me to remember that when you hit Tricky, the world gets more colorful. I've yet to understand why'd you put that in, but it's not something I hate, it's just something I'd rather have the choice of choosing. I didn't expect Darkness to be here. I expected it to be somewhere really dark, I don't know, Alaska, somewhere, but not there. But I think it worked out quite well. I think an open track would've been better, but I know there has to be some variety too. I think this DD is too narrow because it's in a cave. It's visually cool, specially without headlamps on. I'd rank this one in the middle somewhere. Most of what I said is personal opinion too.
- Headlamp: I like them. They're nice. They're a cool visual effect, the only need for them is on Darkness and they do help you see better. I don't think they're a must though. I like using them at night, regardless of whether I need them or not.



- Ice Deadly Descent: This was an easy one without ice axes (I've never even used I think). I just had to be a little bit more careful than usual. I think that's a huge flaw of the DDs by the way. Ice without ice picks is always challenging just like it was in previous SSX games, and I need to be sharp to keep myself riding. As such, the gameplay was fun, but underwhelming at the same time. The track was too, in my opinion.
- Ice Axe: Haven't really tried them... So I can't give my opinion on them. My view, having not used them, is that I never want to. I'm nearly sure they'll take out the fun of the ice courses that 'require' them. I just them losing their bit of originality if I can use ice picks. Nevertheless, I really should try them. Maybe they have a use bar or something, so you can't use them all the time. Well, I do think they have one... I'm neutral on this one, I can't be unfair here.


- Cold Deadly Descent: The tracks always look great in this range, despite them being the most barren. It's how I'd expect Antarctica to look like in SSX. However, this DD has nothing deadly about it. With thermal protection, you can play this track like you play all the other ones. There aren't long enough shadow spots, or if there are, I've yet to see them, and that probably means they're in spots people will run through very few times. It's very easy to get boost here too, so not having boost isn't a problem at all. Even if you didn't have boost, a lot of shadow parts have flares in them, so... I don't know. I don't understand why'd you put flares there. Wouldn't it be smarter if you encouraged people to use the terrain to their advantage, since you can ride and jump off of anywhere, and that it was actually a bullet point of the game? You can come out of many shadow spots which aren't caves by carving hard against the small ice walls and jumping off them. Wouldn't it make the player feel more 'awesome' doing that, and make not having boost enough of a danger that you need to look out for alternatives, rather than giving them free boost? Of course I don't know how more casual people feel, but c'mon, if this is supposed to be a deadly descent... I've run a race on a backcountry track without thermal protection and nearly made it to the end - now that's challenging, and you're wondering why I don't do that on the DD too... Well...
- Thermal Protection: With or without this, cold is a feature that's brought down by a visual effect that is so present in today's games, yet does nothing but get in the way of gameplay. Cold is too easy with protection, it's very challenging without it, but it's just annoying in the end, because of the ice effect all over your screen. It's overdone, very overdone in my opinion. When I'm down to low core temperature, that means I need to look out for areas in the sun. But I can't do that, because the entirity of my screen, except for my rider and what's immediately in front of me, is completely covered in ice. I've tried but I can't understand why'd anyone do an effect like that. I'm trying to look to my sides and beyond, looking for an alternative, but I can't! Everything's covered. In the time of biggest need of the whole of my screen, it's just covered in some ice. There's a whole bunch of ways you could represent low core temperature. Halo lets you know when you're low on armor and health in one of the best ways I've seen, with trademark sounds that are instantly recognizable after a couple play sessions. The screen is never covered by anything, it's merely sounds, and yet I've never seen a game that lets me know so well I need to take cover. I like the effect but the game doesn't really need it and it's only getting in the way.





- Thin Air Deadly Descent: Dreadful. Sorry I can't put it any other way. The course is unremarkable, and I feel absolutely no sense of danger whatsoever. R3 (at least on classic controls) was a very poor choice for the oxygen tank. As someone way too used to classic controls, I found myself mistiming jumps, missing flips, spins, or tricks because R3 confused me way too much. You could say I could get used to it but c'mon, no one wants to do that DD again after the first time... It's easily the worst, where it should arguably be the best, on the most iconic mountain of the planet.
- Oxygen: Dreadful once again. I never felt an ounce of danger. I just felt like mashing my R3 button to get the damn black off my screen. Really annoying. Much worse than ice. I could do without having to race these courses again on Explore... I think there were much better options to represent low oxygen, and much better options to make the deadly descent hard, while still focusing on oxygen.


- Snow Deadly Descent: Eh... Confusing. Not particularly mindblowing. It's fine though, I like it.
- Camera POV: I don't have much to comment on the DD itself because the camera bugs me. If the ideia was to give you a good view of the avalanche, why not have a standard camera but pulled all the way back...? Even more than what we get in other, non DD drops with avalanches. Beause on those, I never actually get to see an avalanche even though the camer is further back. What frustrates me the most is how many tracks have been ruined, for me, for using this camera. Going into the game I thought this was a one time deal on the DD, but it happens there are more tracks with the inverted camera and I can't wait but feel that I just don't wanna play them on Explore... If you had planned such a drastic change in here, why not give us a few options? Like let us choose how we want turning controls to be. Or how do we want the camera to be.

- Gravity Deadly Descent: Easily the best one. With or without wingsuit. I did it without, I'm doing it right now with it. It's the most impressive DD visually too. There's a great sense of that place being really, really out of this world. The mood hits the spot. That's where other tracks fail to me - the mood is not there.
- Wingsuit: The best addition in terms of equipment, by far. It's taking me a good while to get used to it, but I like it so far, and you have to know when to use it, and how to use it. There's a nice management mini game going on, as it doesn't last forever. I'm not sure how I feel about being able to use it in other regions though...

- Whiteout Deadly Descent: Hum... Mixed feelings. It took me 20 tries to beat it without pulse goggles. I have yet to use them. One time I went to Explore and randomly chose a run, I chose one on New Zealand, Thunderbird. And it was awesome. No pulse goggles, no armor, just me and the mountain. I had fun like I hadn't had in World Tour after 5/9 DDs. I felt it was dangerous, I felt lost, but in a good way. The DD has crevasses all over the place so I restarted a lot. And while it was frustrating, the fact I was racing against someone made it more challening, and I couldn't just chicken out an ride slowly. Even restarting it and feling frustrated, I liked it more than most of the others. The course, and all the whiteout courses, are visually very bland though. Snow Jam in SSX3, while not as thick with the fog, had an atmosphere none of the whiteout tracks had. I truly think you could've done more visually, have it have a fantastic mood. As it is, they're just a bland gray all over the place. Something like what I've attached (pic1, I play on an emulator and 2000x1600 resolution so it screws the videos. I own the games and the PS2 of course) would have an incredible mood and would be much more interesting visually. It just needed to have more fog of course. But that's an example, I'm sure that you, as game developers, could come up with more, and even better ideias. I liked that on the DD, there was one small part with no fog. I think it'd be interesting if you played around more with varying levels of fog. Make it not always so hard to see, have some... Safe havens. Without pulse goggles, it felt so relieving to have some meters without fog.
- Pulse Goggles:Haven't played with them, so I can't really comment on them. But if I haven't used them so far, it's because there's probably a good reason in my head.



- Death Zone: Awesome! Himalayas redeemed! Why is it not on Mt. Everest though? It'd make more sense to switch the DD mountain with this one heh. The track had a nice blizzard, but visually I thought it was all over the place. It felt like you grabbed parts from each range and pasted them there. It didn't feel like it was on Himalayas. I really like the track though, with all the different things to it. The best way to end World Tour, definitely.


- General DDs: Why are these easier than backcountry peaks? I don't think that makes any sense. I thought the DDs were the most... DDs on earth? Why is it that right next to them, there's 3 drops twice as difficult? (I'm looking at you Patagonia, Alps) From a game design point, and from whatever little I know, it makes little sense. These 'bosses' as you described them, are easier than trash mobs (MMO term). You also made the bosses too easy by giving the player equipment that is just too good. I think no equipment, but fine tuned tracks would've been great. Of course, equipment is nice, but between what I have right now, and having nothing, I'd prefer nothing (excluding wingsuit). There's so many weird things going on. Cold DD is nearly impossible with protection, yet with it, it's way too easy. It's either 8 or 80, it's like there's no middle ground. Then there's the gravity DD, which is just right without a wingsuit, it's easy with one, but yet it's still very fun. Then, the other gravity drops are too hard no matter what. I understand there's a lot of newcomers, but in my view you made the DDs too easy even for them, by giving equipment that shoots your survival rate to 100% that costs next to nothing. Armor is too overpowered in my view, for drops that aren't really that hard, like tree DD. I've just tried ice DD with axes, and I was playing like ice didn't matter. I don't know whether I'm right here, it's just how I feel. Darkness will feel unfair to many, because it's about pits players can't see, and that's a feeling no equipment can change. Difficulty, equipment, random crevasses, everything is all over the place on the 9 DDs. I imagine, for most of the player base, some of the DDs being easy to achieve gold on explore, with legendary equipment and level 10. At the same time, I imagine some of them beeing too hard or unfair no matter what (oxygen, darkness). There's just no cohesion, things don't seem to be balanced enough, one DD is not deadly at all, another is randomly deadly with no fault of the player.