A ten-step guide to videogame morphine

SSX3 - The back-country

2003 | EA Sports BIG | GC, PS2, XBox

You’re standing on top of a mountain. There’s endless blue sky above you and the purest white snow stretching out for miles below. The landscape is as perfect as the world can provide, and all the less desirable trappings of that world are far, far away. Up here theplanet is silent but for the wind and the birds. Did we mention you’ve got a plank attached to your feet? Time to go exploring.

The back-country of SSX3 is sublime. The lower levels of Big Mountain might have all neon and excitement, but take a solo free ride through the wilderness and you’ll really be seeing the best of the game. Vast, open, all-natural environments, the freedom to go anywhere that takes your fancy – as long as it’s roughly in a downward direction – no time limits and no rules. It’s just pure, snowboarding bliss of the highest order and one of the finest ways to wind down available in gaming.

Slip along a frosty ridge at 90 miles per hour with the perfectly-paced mellow electronica of Royksopp pumping into your ears, sail into a glimmering crystaline cave, and then shoot out the other side and launch yourself off the oncoming cliff for massive, mile-high air. Marvel as the dynamic soundtrack cuts the beats and the bass as you soar sky-high before kicking them back in as you land, or even better still, turn the radio off and just wallow in the natural music of the countryside. Either way, you’re onto a winner.