There’s something that drives me crazy about the way society sees men who play video games. If we’re not grouped into the proverbial man-child bracket, we’re shoehorned into the “Spike TV Demographic.” You know, the bar hopping, beer swilling, 4-wheeler riding, women’s ass slapping, backyard sports playing party dudes who only touch a video game when it involves Madden or extreme sports. While these gamers do exist (and there are millions of them), not all of us qualify. These are the douchebags who stopped playing “kiddy” Mario games in the mid-90s because of social pressure to grow out of “childish” things.
These are the jackasses who thumb their noses up at any game that requires complex thought, and they generally refuse to play anything that doesn’t involve camouflage. I call them“Bro Gamers,” aka the douchebags who represent the stereotypical man gamer in the eyes of video game publishers. Unfortunately for the rest of us, most big budget mainstream games are tailored specifically to this demographic’s tastes. Even more unfortunate is when an existing license is run through the meat grinder to be refitted to suit this demographic. Such an unfortunate fate recently befell a beloved franchise from the previous generation of consoles: SSX.
We all remember the SSX series. After UEP Systems developed the original Cool Boarders in 1996, Nintendo released 1080 Snowboarding for the N64. Snowboarding games quickly became all the rage. Sony and 989 Studios pumped out another Cool Boarders every year and promptly proceeded to run it into the ground as fast as they could. After Nintendo and Sony had proceeded to cannibalize each other in the Snowboarding market, EA Canada launched a genre defining game just in time for the launch of the PlayStation 2 with SSX, easily the best snowboarding franchise of all time.
The SSX franchise represented all the best elements of sports video games as a medium. “Realism” was a word that the EA BIG brand didn’t understand. All that mattered in SSX was fun. Artificial half-pipes built in the middle of sprawling cityscapes leading into giant neon covered mountains were the norm. The amount of hang-time you could achieve was ridiculous. Tracks went on seemingly forever. The goofy, ever over-the-top 90s stylings were hysterical, the announcer was a laugh a second, and the action was wild and crazy. Each game upped the insanity a little more than the last. For a time, SSX was a better party game than even the mighty Mario Kart.
SSX Tricky, 2001
SSX Deadly Descents, 2011
And then EA had to go and ruin it. After taking a low profile for a few years, EA has decided to relaunch the brand for the first time on the HD consoles in the form of SSX: Deadly Descent. Ever since its unveiling, Deadly Descent has received almost universal scorn from fans of the series, most likely because this game wasn’t meant for them. EA decided to retool SSX into a dark, realistic, fight for survival on real world mountaintops that some outlets have literally said looks more like Call of Duty than SSX.
EA has taken away our SSX and rebranded it as a Bro Game since that’s now the target audience for any extreme sports title. You’d think the recent success of NBA Jam would have taught them better. All the colorful, goofball, arcadey action has been replaced with angst, physics, and realism. As the economy waffles and budgets get tighter, more and more games will be retooled to suit what is believed to be the biggest audience. Publishers are run by men who cater to stereotypes. The only way to change this atmosphere is to make a stand. Speak up and tell EA just what you think of their decision to retool SSX into something it’s not. Don’t buy into their “Bro job,” and perhaps they’ll think twice before they gut another beloved brand for the Spike TV demographic.
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