I I fell off the wagon recently. It took two and a half years, but all it took was one small mistake on his part. One night at home, it was offered to me. It was a little complimentary flavor that drove me crazy. Before I knew it, I was hooked. I know that sucks. I know it has no purpose other than to make me do more and get more money as I fall deeper and deeper into the quagmire of addiction. But there I was. I’m back to FIFA. (It’s EA Sports FC 24 to be exact, since it lost the official rights.)
It was a 10-hour free trial of Xbox Live. 10 hours is fine, I told myself. It’s just a taste. Let’s see what happens after 30 months. And before I knew it, I was hooked on Ultimate Team again. This is the equivalent of the game where you stand outside your ex-wife’s house and try to see what toys your new wife bought your kids.
The Rolling Stones’ Angry is the demo theme song. of course. Two bloated money making entities that should have been stopped years ago. (Actually, I like their last album, but I don’t have time to get sentimental about punchlines.)
“I’m mad,” Mick Jagger sings, “Don’t be mad!”
Never in my life have I felt like a game spoke to me so much.
What’s telling is that organizations outside of FIFA have made little progress. It is true that there are slight differences in the mechanics of the ball. The chemistry side seems more dull. There’s a weird phenomenon where the camera zooms in on the player inside the box, seemingly for no other reason than to cause a panic attack, but the basic controls are the same. Women are also participating with equal status, which is welcome. There are also new variations of shiny players, specifically heroes, or enhanced older players who were already icons in the game. However, the heroes have cards drawn in the style of Marvel superheroes, which means Steve McManaman is “AGENT MACCA Steve McManaman: Hero”. Galactico. Gentleman. ”
Oh please grow up.
It seems like there are more challenges to upgrade players, but this may only seem that way because I joined the game late. It also speaks to the fact that I spent most of the 10 hours of the free trial adjusting with the team in the transfer market. I only play about a dozen games. Was it always like this?
I looked online to see the official differences. In EA’s official video, he rants for over three minutes about Haaland’s extremely wide arms and something called his HyperMotion V technology, but I’m not surprised that he uses something called Liposomes to activate his face. It reminded me of his TV commercial for Cream.
If I hadn’t quit, I think I would have spent at least £300 by now to keep playing the same game. Today is Groundhog Day meets House Crocodile. This may be the most Guardian-like piece of writing I’ve ever written.
But no change is the key, right? Provides something familiar. What got you into it in the first place? Woe to programmers who change the mechanics of a beloved game. It’s like going back to cocaine and discovering that it puts me to sleep instead of turning me into a completely selfish, heart-pounding, rattling being.
Series that are updated every year (or games like Marvel Snap that are constantly updated) are lucrative because they give us something familiar. What sets video games apart from other forms of art and entertainment is their constant desire to create something new and contemporary, yet continually reinvent what we already know. It seems ironic that they offer it to us. We watch it again and again, just like we watch Die Hard whenever it’s on TV.
Addiction does not only refer to the high that comes from a poisonous drug. It’s about the framework you give your life. Fill in the gaps you don’t want to deal with. It’s like a parent telling you what to do and when to do it, which is comforting. Certainly not the best parents in the world, but parents who don’t question things until it’s too late. I went to treatment for 5 years to get off cocaine. In fact, I quit cocaine after the first year. It took another four years to stop treatment.
So even though I hate this game and the years and money I spent on it, at the end of the free trial I hover my finger over the button to buy the deluxe version. Of course I want something good. And it’s the easiest drug to get more of. You can use your credit card with just one click. The situation may be different if you had to buy games like illegal drugs. If you call someone and say you want some cake, you meet them in a frigid pub car park. Forget about online microtransactions. Instead, he looks at three clubs before finding someone who will sell him. And it’s only when you get home that you realize you have far fewer games than you intended to buy.
I’m away from Xbox. I didn’t buy the game. But maybe tomorrow.
Source: www.theguardian.com