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Saturday, January 31, 2009

Games ... And This Is How You Repay Me?!

Posted by Earnest "Nex" Cavalli on Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 8:31 AM

e29d/1233388657-skate221.jpg

A few nights ago I was attending a gallery opening sitting in a bar instant messaging a friend crying softly to myself and the topic of conversation turned to gaming publishers who no longer seemed to be in league with the devil.

While it was roundly agreed that Activision took up His Unholy Mantle somewhere around Tony Hawk's Pro Shopping Cart Racer IV, its eternal foe, Electronic Arts, had recently shed its Scrooge-McDuckian image thanks in no small part to the last few years of innovative gaming releases.

Though titles like Mirror's Edge prove more visionary than revolutionary, it, along with true gems like Skate, prove that the company is willing to take risks, even when it's irrefutably more profitable to churn out endless pabulum.

Content that I was not working as a mouthpiece for an industry as corrupt and decadent as Hollywood — and slightly bummed about the lack of decadence — I smiled, then tucked myself into bed with visions of Carroll-era Christmas treats dancing in my head (presumably only for the purposes of this sentence).

As if to prove that no good word goes un-shot-to-hell, what should I find when I awoke the next day, slipped on my plush onesie (Cronkite swore by the onesie) and fired up Ye Olde Internete?

EA has a new set of horns.

If you're a consummate reader of The Merc's gaming reviews — and really, what the fuck else do you have to do today? — you already know that Skate 2 is a ball of awesome wrapped in robotic dinosaur metaphors.

It doesn't so much redefine the world of virtual skating as offers it a million-dollar Birdhouse sponsorship deal and an episode of MTV Cribs. In short: I'd call it the bee's knees if that were anything but massively anachronistic and histrionic.

Looking to cash in on the goodwill of all those gamers who read my review — and all the others like it — EA has launched the first line of downloadable add-ons for the game. Now, DLC has never been much more than an effort to squeeze extra cash out of gamers, but this shit is ridiculous.

Have a look:

Filmer Pack: Upgrade skate.Reel with advanced camera controls for the replay editor, custom watermarks, expanded online storage (share up to 5 minutes of footage) plus extra gear for your skater. $7.50
Time Is Money Pack: If you are busy, or just plain lazy, "Time is Money" will unlock all locations, skaters and gear that can be earned by playing through Skate 2's career and online modes. $5

One could argue that the Filmer Pack adds extra content for those Skate 2 fans hard up for more options when showing off their virtual exploits to an uncaring worldwide audience, but as the editor included with the game only comes standard with one visual effect (slow motion) it seems like EA really could have packed the $7.50 worth of excess content into the game to begin with.

And don't even get me started on selling gamers a patch to enable the only deadly sin named after an adorable woodland creature.

What many of you don't know is that this DLC was planned well before the release of Skate 2, so it's not like EA decided post-launch that the game needed these additions. As I had a review copy a few weeks prior to the game hitting shelves, I was privy to the game's incomplete DLC listing, which included both of these items. Though you couldn't download them prior to the game's release, it shows that someone at EA had already decided to milk the DLC teat well in advance.

I'd like to urge you not to buy this, but face it: Nothing I say is going to change what you do with your money. Short of cutting off your arms or stealing your car I have no impact on your wallet, and this text will be forgotten moments after you skim through it.

With that self-defeatist thought in mind, here's something that might affect you: A video of people being punched in the face in slow motion:


Totally worth it, if only for the fat guy at the end.

 

Comments (4) RSS

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1
To make this issue even more frustrating, a lot of the features found in the "Filmer Pack" were part of the replay editor from the original game. It's hard enough for me to justify (to myself) $60 video games, let alone paying extra for features that were excluded so they could be sold later.
Posted by wka on January 31, 2009 at 12:37 PM · Report
2
How can they charge money to unlock things on the disk?

That's bullshit.
Posted by Graham on January 31, 2009 at 1:24 PM · Report
3
I wonder if those people getting smacked about will sue now?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte…
Posted by NIG GER on January 31, 2009 at 3:00 PM · Report
4
So torn on this. But, on a lighter note, I hit a rail wrong yesterday and got hilariously catapulted through the air:

http://skatereel.ea.com/members/1/15640006…
Posted by tk. on February 1, 2009 at 11:16 AM · Report

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