My Body is Ready
By jakob187 12 Comments
It's tough being pigeonholed.
There are always people that want to say what you as a gamer prefer to play is somehow "wrong" or "stupid", some even going so far as to say you play "bad games" just because they don't like the specific genre. You see it a lot with Call of Duty players towards others, and that same feeling seems to get reciprocated a lot. However, how do you handle it when these situations come up?
Recently, my friend and I were discussing games that we are looking forward to playing in 2012 - specifically, the early part of 2012. Amidst the nods of "more Dark Souls" and "more Skyrim" and "Old Republic" and "Kingdoms of Amalur", it became quickly apparent to me that I had dropped a bombshell of hype on him that he wasn't ready to hear, like he needed to grab onto something because the blast seemed too much for him to bear. I said the following words:
"SSX is going to own my soul this year. I guarantee that I will put more hours into that game than anything else."
He seemed blown away by this, asking how the hell someone could possibly put that over stuff like Dark Souls, Skyrim, Kingdoms of Amalur, and Old Republic. Thus, I had to explain to him my obsession with SSX 3, the pinnacle of the franchise. It is no lie to say that I put more play time into SSX 3 than pretty much any other game in my life, barring World of Warcraft and possibly Vagrant Story. There may be a few others, but they don't come to my mind immediately. The point of the matter is this: I got every Platinum medal in the game, posted up on message boards with high scores as often as possible, and in general was very fucking good at SSX 3.
In this lies a problem, though: how do I explain why I spent so much time in a game where you are essentially just going down a track and doing tricks? How do you make someone who has never played the game and has little interest in doing so understand "there's a thrill in doing these tricks, getting the big air, going fast, and the general atmosphere"? I don't feel like I have to justify why I like a game to anyone. However, it's not like he's saying "oh, fuck that game, it sucks". Instead, it's an understanding that we both like different kinds of games (he loves Soul Calibur, I'm not a huge fan) but I can't explain to him why I'll put more hours into SSX than he'll put into Skyrim or Dark Souls.
There are few that can even understand the level of hype I have for SSX. This is something I've been waiting for since playing SSX on Tour and being thoroughly saddened and disappointed by what it was. I've been dying to see only a handful of games get their proper dues in sequel form: Vagrant Story 2, Dark Cloud 3, SSX, Fear Effect 3, and a new Kain/Raziel game.
It's like all the people waiting for Persona 5 or some other illusive game that never seems to get closer. This time, though...it is finally happening.
I'm ready for SSX. I'm ready for the slopes, the peaks, the spills, the tricks, the speed, the ambiance, the atmosphere, the soundtrack, the leaderboards, the RiderNet...EVERYTHING!
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