I am not much for skiing, I'll give you that. I remember several years ago, when I was just a young gamer, that I first strapped those two pieces of metal to my feet and tried to make my way down the bunny hill, only to find myself sliding backwards off a steep slope and sliding my way into a parking lot. And I won't even go into detail about the time that I was knocked down by a chair lift that simply didn't agree with me sitting in it. The fact that the score still stands at "Chair lift: 1, Robert: 0" is rather humiliating.

However, put me behind a good skiing video game and it'll suddenly become second nature. I couldn't tell you the number of times I rampaged in the Alpine Racer arcade games, or mastered the hills of 1080 Snowboarding on the Nintendo 64. I got so used to the extreme style that I could simply just jump in and race down the mountain with ease, without even nary a sight of a chair lift. And included in this are the SSX games, first introduced to us back in 2000 with the original on PlayStation 2 and since adapted into something of a huge brand name. Now we come across the latest in the series, SSX On Tour, and while it doesn't take monumental leaps forward, it does maintain its course, and fans should welcome it.

The formula is very familiar to SSX 3, in which you choose your skier (male or female) and then proceed through a series of events, ranging from a downhill race against a competitor to a trick mode where a certain point total has to be met in a series of heats to tournaments where you'll proceed as you get closer to the first place marker. The difference, however, lies in the way On Tour presents itself. This time around, you take part in what's called a Rock Star mode, where you begin to earn your status of greatness and move up in the ranks of popularity as you complete each event. New events open up quite often, challenging you to finish them before you move on.

The events can grow a bit repetitive in nature, but at least there's plenty to do, and the game has a progressive difficulty scale that's welcome. Instead of just trying to throw you on a black diamond course and wishing you the best of luck, On Tour instead lets you progress through easier goals and then ranks you up, introducing new difficult tasks with each level. You think it might be easy to score 160,000 points in four heats, but, I assure you, you'll be working for your point count.

What goes along with this are some touches that make this a more personal product, even if it seems a bit familiar. The first thing you'll notice is the slick new menu system, which uses hand-drawn animation and characters that are humorous, like rampaging mini-Santas or a horse that has a way with facial expressions. It all moves along great and definitely differs from the high-fusion stuff we saw in previous games. The courses themselves also pack a visual punch, although most of it looks copied over from some of SSX 3's better courses. That's not to say the game doesn't have its moments of visual greatness, but some of it seems a bit recycled.