Freestyle -- yes the mode seen in the Circuit mode -- is also playable in one or two player mode. These are basically closed areas filled with smashable glass, tv's showing whats going on and a hell of a lot of jumps and fire. Go fast, hit jumps and pull the nastiest tricks you can pull, land them and get points and build up your Freekout meter (more on that later). Two player mode adds a few more game modes than simply Head to Head. Tag mode and King of Pane add a little more to the mix. Tag involves you having to ride through boxes and each time you do it is 'tagged' with your corresponding colour. Tag an opponents box and it also changes to your colour. The person with the most tagged boxes when time runs out wins. Same goes with King of Pane except exchange little boxes with panes of glass... nice.

The last and least challenging mode is Freeride. No time limits, no opponents, just you and the track. You can explore each track to find every little shortcut and find out the best place to pull what kind of tricks. And now that you're riding aimlessly around and around this course trying to get the most out of each track, it would be the perfect time to explain how the game actually controls. All but two buttons on the controller are for pulling tricks. 'A' accelerates and 'B' brakes, and while you are on the ground, 'Z' boosts (if you have boost).

Anyone who has sat down with SSX or SSX Tricky will know what to expect when it comes to pulling tricks. You have four trick buttons and a tweak button. Pushing one trick button pulls a relatively simple trick -- a 'No Hander' with the 'X' button, a 'No Footer' with the 'Y' button, etc etc. Mix it up with two buttons or three buttons and harder tricks are pulled off. Ok so there are 14 tricks, but where oh where are all the others? And this is where the tweak button comes in handy. While pulling any trick simply add the 'Z' button to the mix and it will change that 'No Footer' into a 'Nothing', that 'Bar Hop' to a 'McMetz' (named after its creator Mike Metzger) and so on and so forth, instantly doubling the amount of tricks you have. The other tricks are similar button pushes but on different bikes. But what is the use of tricks if they don't actually help you get to the finish, right? Every time you pull a half decent trick (and land it) you have two little meters that slowly build up. A yellow one shows you how much boost you have left to help pass any unwanted opponent while the red meter shows how close you are to a Freekout, and the Freekout is where things get real fun.

Once the Freekout meter hits the top and the little insane smiley face starts it's shaking you have to be prepared to hit all 4 trick buttons before the Freekout runs out. Once you have done so your rider pulls his Super-Trick. Half way through the bike stops mid air, Matrix style camera ensues and all goes deathly quiet as the bike heads back down to Earth. Flames erupt, the music kicks back in and the crowd goes wild as you blast through the track at a speed even the processor inside the GC is having problems calculating. The most fun times in this game is when these happen, just keep it going by doing tricks along the way.

Graphics could be improved over what they are, although the frame-rate is silky smooth -- it doesn't even shudder with trees, rocks, and the track twirling by in perfect detail off into the non pop-up distance. Textures could be slightly higher but it is good to see most of the jaggies left over from the PS2 version are smoothed out. No technical breakthrough, but far from ugly.

EA Big have signed up some hard bands to go with the hard look of the game, pity you probably haven't heard of them. Whether or not this is a good thing doesn't really matter as it does suit the game, and for the main part it does drown out the monotonous sound of the engine. A few improvements have been noted for EA's sake. On one course the engine sounds like it's idling when it obviously isn't, and the announcer telling you that you need to trick to get boost almost every time you press boost -- when you forgot to check if you have any. Understandable to have that happen the first few times you play, but EVERY time?