Nintendo said they dropped the traditional controller in favour of Wii's radical Wii-mote so that anyone could pick up a game and have instant fun. EA must have missed the point of this concept though, as their latest instalment in the popular SSX series seems initially inaccessible, even in experienced hands.

SSX Blur uses both the Wii-mote and the Nunchuk attachment, but this tends to leave you feeling bewildered, even after spending an hour with the extensive tutorials, which feel slightly disjointed in the way the teach you the basic functionality of the game. The most irritating aspect of the tutorial section is simply the difficulty; you would expect a casual difficulty to introduce the player to the game - but not in Blur. It's almost as if the game assumes that you should know this stuff already.

The basic controls are simple enough and carving through the powder by tilting the Nunchuk is immediately intuitive, but the various actions required to land tricks like flips, grabs and spins never feels like second nature, precise or reliable. In fact they feel downright awkward, to the point where you end up just waving the Wii-mote around frantically, trying to do anything that will result in points. I found that I only actually got the trick I wanted about a quarter of the time, and when I did, it took so long to slooowly do the gestures that I ran out of air and had to watch my poor character smash into trees, rocks or other various objects that don't make for a happy landing.

The worst culprit is the 'Ubertrick', which requires you to point the Wii-mote at the screen and 'draw' predetermined shapes in the air to make your character perform wild manoeuvres. Other than the initial Z-shape, most are difficult to perform with any degree of confidence, especially the later ubertricks, as some of the shapes are so complex to draw that they are almost impossible to pull off. This is a big problem, as the ubertricks' high-scoring nature makes them important in later tournaments and because of this you'll find yourself flying off a high air jump, performing what you think surely must be the right motion - no, there is no doubt, you did perform the right motion, so here come the points! And then nothing - no ubertrick to get you gallons of points; instead, you fly through the air, not doing any tricks and land having just wasted a big air opportunity, which of course means that to make up for the points you lost you'll have to do the more complex ubertricks next time, leading to a vicious circle that saps all the fun out of what is a great game on other systems. This really is a shame, as there is certainly plenty of fun to be had in Blur's career mode - if you can persevere and master the tricky and irritating controls. Good luck with that.

The courses feature many SSX trademarks, such as enormous jumps that, when the ubertricks work, give you an immense sense of "now that was awesome"-ness. Outrageously long rails to grind along and huge swooping corners that you can navigate at a thrilling pace making the races where the goal is to finish first much more fun to play than the competitions based around gaining points through tricks.

Pleasingly, challenges such as races, slalom, big air and half-pipe contests can be selected instantly from a menu, or you can freely explore the peaks on your board, discovering events as you progress. The peaks themselves are huge and diverse in the number of different routes you can take to the bottom. It can be slightly confusing to find something however, as if you miss your turn off then you have to go all the way down to the bottom and back to the top again. This can be circumnavigated by using the quick jump menu - but where's the fun in that? There are also mini-challenges, such as snowball throwing, one-on-one races and items to collect. Success is rewarded with new upgradeable characters and equipment. Limited multiplayer options are also available, although the lack of online play will certainly disappoint.

Graphically there are few complaints about Blur, except maybe a few hardcore fans of the series may be a little disappointed with the more cartoony graphics. Still, they do fit the game very well and have been animated exquisitely, with plenty of little touches that really do make a difference, like the characters being covered in powder after having bailed. The audio side is also very good; the music suits the mood of the game excellently, changing to fit in with all your amazing highs when have one of those insane moments that make you wish the game had instant replay, to the crushing lows that make you glace over your shoulder to check that no one saw what just happened. The sound effects are also pretty good - it's easy, for example, to tell what kind of snow you are on by just listening to the sound made by your board swishing over smooth powder to sliding over icy sheet snow. The voice acting is rather cheesy, but then the whole game has its cheesy moments, so the vocals are not exactly out of place.

Players with infinite patience and the strength of will to complete the game will be well rewarded, but those expecting the same level of intuitiveness and accessibility as other Wii or SSX games will be more than a little frustrated. SSX Blur has its moments, where it's easy to forget all the problems, and while everything is going your way it's great. Unfortunately, these moments are few and far between, resulting in an experience that's more irritating than enjoyable, which is further compounded by how much potential the game had to be great - if only the controls been more refined and more accurate. We can only hope that the developers learn from this, because the Wii's method of control is new and unique, so it's good to see developers testing the water and trying something new, even if it doesn't always work out as well as expected.

Reviewed by Scott McCabe for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).