The other day I posted on my Facebook that I was picking up this game and it was making me feel about ten years younger. This is because back when I shared an apartment with a few of my college friends. Ian who actually did not live with us at the time bought a Gamecube and it stayed in residence at the apartment. We had two games, Super Smash Bros Melee and SSX Tricky.
These two game took up pretty much every free second of our time and it was glorious! Today due to the focus here we will stick to SSX (though volumes could be written about the Smash Bros events in that apartment). We typically played Tricky (we used to just cut off the SSX part, so much so that I just call the game Tricky even now when I got the new one) when there was only two or three of us around and we would just take turns doing the runs and trying to out score each other on the trick runs.
It was awesome. The new SSX game does not lend itself as easily to that method of play since you don’t simply put in your name at the end of each high scoring run, but in a wider scope it is pretty great in that all of the friends you have on the Xbox are perpetually competing with you for those high scores and fast runs. Not only is there the satisfaction of beating and competing with your Xbox friends, but the entire online community can enter events where you all compete to win in-game credits that you then spend to enter other events. It is great because I like winning things even if they are intangible in-game things. (Usually I place in the Gold bracket, which is ‘Above Average’ Diamond and Platinum elude me most of the time still.
Another thing I have liked about SSX since the SSX3 version is that EA puts some great music into the game and it is nice to have my music library expanded while I play. For instance this current game has introduced me to Foster the People.
And The Naked and Famous
It is also nice that Amber has tried to play the game a few times. Most of the time I get games and she just has no interest and I can understand why, like Batman for instance, it is just not her type of game. This game however is one that it would be great if she could get good enough to be competitive at it with me. That might be a bit of an unlikely wish since I have been playing some version of SSX for ten years and she has just started, but it would be cool.
As the wife of a gaming husband I have learned to love games more and hate them more. I have been introduced to so many cool new games that intrigued me and kept me occupied for hours at a time, but I have also sat by bored to death as my husband played for hours on end.
ReplyDeleteI have also become educated about the world of gaming and its systems. Yes, I refer to everything as "Nintendo" because the NES is the one and only game system I had as a child, but I am aware of the proper terms I just can't be bothered to use.
I play games that bore my husband with their lack of action or goals to beat (such as Kingdom of Keflings and Diner Dash), but I also attempt and sometimes enjoy Zelda, Batman, and most recently SSX.
I am at my core though a "button smasher" with a short attention span, a hatred of drawn out story lines I cannot skip, and an intelligent mind that can never seem to remember more than a few combinations of buttons to complete a move. This makes playing video games with me very frustrating for my husband. However, he remains patient, helpful, and encouraging between his head shakes.
I have never played SSX before and I have to say that it is the type of game I could enjoy. You cannot die, your ski run does not time out so you always get to finish, the controls are simple to do all the tricks (I just need to rememeber them), the music is awesome, and each run takes only a few minutes so I can do a few and then walk away from the game feeling happy. It also means taking turns with my husband goes well as I'm not waiting around forever while he does well just to play for a short time until I die. It also means I don't get frustrated competing against him at the same time basically getting walloped like when we've tried Smash Bros. (another games he's played for years).