Despite SSX being utterly brilliant, it managed to miss out one crucial mode when it launched at the start of the year, that being a competitive multiplayer. OK, so facing off against a few thousand ghosts might be fun for a while, but nothing quite compares to cutting up your opposition and swinging an elbow in their bemused face as you pass.

This is no longer an issue for PS3 SSX’ers though, as they can get their hands on the new multiplayer update from today. “3,2,1 Go!”, as it’s called, throws players into head-to-head face-offs in the game’s Global Events, and up to four players will be able to trick it out to see who’s the true king of the mountain. If you’re just looking for traditional racing, that’s on offer too.

Another new mode called “Freeride” has also been added, which removes the HUD (and just about everything else except you and your board), and simply lets you tear down the mountain at your own pace, doing whatever you see fit. Finally, there’s a number of bug fixes, all of which are as follows:

  • SSX Update feature: Brings you all the latest information you nee to know about any future updates or fixes to the game.
  • There was an issue with collecting a large amount of Geotags that resulted in a crash.  This issue is now fixed.
  • There was an issue with earning a large number of Credits in your bank.  Having a couple of billion credits in your bank account can now only be considered a good thing!
  • A fix has been implemented in the lifetime earnings display to reflect the above fix.
  • If you have not already earned any of these 3 global event badges, the game will grant them to you automatically when you join any Glob Event: “Part of the Crowd”, “I Want To Belong” and ” Bandwagon”. EA have also fixed a rare problem with “The Gold Miner” not unlocking correctly for some players.
  • If you are a popular player with many friends, you have probably grown frustrated with the speed and performance of the Returned menu. This is now much improved.
  • Players with many friends have also likely experienced an issue with RiderNet not remembering some of your Global Event information, or even the fact that you had paid and entered certain events from time to time. The saving and loading of this information has also been greatly improved.

The update is live on SSX on PS3 right now. There’s no word on the Xbox 360 update, but expect it in the imminent future.