EA wanted to take the series in a new direction, but only made bad decisions. all the personality and dialogue from the original characters have been removed. the game runs at half the framerate of SSX3 and Tricky. the monster tricks break the flow of gameplay by introducing slowmo and turning the camera so that you can't see the ground beneath you. there's like 2 diplo songs on it. every aspect of the game is a downgrade from the masterpiece that immediately preceded it, and yet it's still an arcade snowboarding game that came out after everyone else had abandoned the genre, and that in itself is a damn triumph.