SSX is a beautiful thing - SSX3 in particular is one of my favorite games to this day - the combination of insane stunts, adaptive music, and insanely long courses continues to be pleasing.
I knew that SSX on the Xbox 360 would not be the same before I even bought it. In particular, I knew that the courses were not linked together into one insane run like SSX3. But the first time I jumped out of that helicopter, and the massive beats of Foster The People's Houdini started playing, I had hope. When I failed and failed again to stick a landing and landed straight on my face, or careened off of a cliff into the abyss for the third time, I knew there was something special here. This game had me hooked.
And then it got weird. The "online" features of the game started to get mixed in with the offline features in confusing ways. Was that powerup placed by a person, or is it built into the game? Will I have enough currency to buy the boards I need, or will I need to buy some sort of DLC to finish the game in a reasonable time? Are these leaderboards local? Is it my neighborhood, or my friends, or everyone? I had no idea.
It threw me out of the zone - that sort of magical place that games inhabit when I'm not thinking about anything but the game.
I've noticed more and more games doing this - getting me into the zone before abruptly knocking me out again. Often it's things like DLC ads, or bizarre currencies that I have to buy with real money to avoid grinding. Sometimes it's just the question of "how much of this is supposed to make me spend money?"
It makes sense in a free to play game, sort of - you have to interrupt people's games so that they want to keep playing, and will pay you real money to do so. But in a game that I bought for $60, what's the point except to make sure I don't buy the sequel?
I really hate the free to play model personally, and I hate the idea that's it's leaked into games that I legitimately bought. Honestly it's one of the biggest reasons I've pretty much stopped buying AAA games - I think I bought maybe 3 last year, and none of them new.
I guess the lesson to be learned here is "don't interrupt the zone unless you want to piss people off." Or maybe just don't buy games from EA anymore.
I think this is particularly shitty on a game that pretty much defined immersion in a genre that didn't see much of it--IN MY EXPERIENCE, which is like 4 games in all the world so probably not really "experience" so much as "me bullshitting."
ReplyDeleteBut really, SSX 3 was a form of meditation for me. Everything was perfect. You could just GO for almost 30 friggin' minutes with no breaks, cut scenes, interruptions--both the music and the clever use of a DJ made you feel like you were really on a snowy mountain, boarding on your day off through gorgeous terrain.
The gameplay itself was very good, but that feeling of being in the game, for me, was the point of playing.
I'm also pretty annoyed with the free-to-play setup, but I also know I'm far more likely to download a free game than pay for one.
And, of course, people are greedy, and with everything connected to the internet these days, there's no reason NOT to extend that model to prepaid games.
Kinda like how there used to not be commercials in the good ol' UK, as TV was paid for with tax. Eventually, commercials seeped in anyway, but the tax still exists. And that kinda thing happens gradually enough that by the time it's fully integrated, we won't notice it anymore. In the same way we block out banner ads and billboards and the constant influx of information we don't need and don't want, these game interruptions will just become a part of the ever-fractured scenery of modern life.
Or maybe The System will all crash in a few years and we should be collecting canned goods instead of worrying about game immersion.
I'M ON THE FENCE TBH