I had a text from a mate last night, asking whether I'd played the new Star Wars: Battlefront beta.
It has been all over the interweb - people posting about how good it looks, their excitement at "being" Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker. And so on.
Yet I've not even wanted to give it a go. Which might seem a bit strange from someone who's as big a Star Wars fan as I am.
See, Star Wars is my thing. To say I'm a fan isn't really scratching the surface of it. I can remember my first time seeing all three films. I can remember my first action figure (Chewbacca if you're interested). I can remember the excitement of meeting Boba Fett in a toy shop in Poole. Christmas was always all about Star Wars, all about those toys, all about carving story out of those action figures, playsets and vehicles.
It has been all over the interweb - people posting about how good it looks, their excitement at "being" Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker. And so on.
Yet I've not even wanted to give it a go. Which might seem a bit strange from someone who's as big a Star Wars fan as I am.
See, Star Wars is my thing. To say I'm a fan isn't really scratching the surface of it. I can remember my first time seeing all three films. I can remember my first action figure (Chewbacca if you're interested). I can remember the excitement of meeting Boba Fett in a toy shop in Poole. Christmas was always all about Star Wars, all about those toys, all about carving story out of those action figures, playsets and vehicles.
Heck, on Force Friday last month I was at Toys R Us early to get the new The Force Awakens toys. Inevitably, I wasn't even the only middle-aged man there. I've owned Stormtrooper and Darth Vader costumes.
I went to my daughter's 18th birthday party dressed as Princess Leia, and completely went to town on my costume for the recent Secret Cinema screening of The Empire Strikes Back. What's more, I still get annoyed - more than 30 years on - about a woman who I once overheard referring to the films as "Star Wars Galactica".
But for me, I never played with my Star Wars toys as plastic soldiers. They were characters in an ongoing saga. My bedroom was a Galaxy Far Far Away. Often the stories I plotted out with those characters would span weeks. I'd set up the figures in the morning before school, and would spend the whole day thinking about the next chapter in their lives.
And that might be why I've never loved the Battlefront games. And also why I did terribly at school.
A STAR WARS STORY
Battlefront has never really cared about delivering a single-player experience.
Yet for me, Star Wars is a story, not a series of battles. The storytelling in the prequels might be woefully imbalanced, but that original trilogy was an exercise in economic and iconic storytelling.
The moments in the original saga that burn brightest in my memory - in my soul - are Darth Vader's revelation about Luke's parentage, Luke staring out at the twin suns of Tatooine, Han kissing Leia on the Falcon, or Vader's redemption. Moments of character that mattered. It was a story that played out against a backdrop of a star war - it was never about the war itself. At least, not for me.
And so it's hard to care about Star Wars Battlefront. Don't get me wrong: I'll be there the day it comes out. I'll be bringing you a review. But as my friend said in our texts last night, the technology has finally reached a point where we can enter the Star Wars saga and feel fully immersed. Imagine a new version of Dark Forces or Jedi Knight with the visuals offered by Battlefront.
A game where we become the story - where we are invested - rather than a video game where we're mere cogs in some massive online battle. The lack of a single-player campaign in Battlefront is, for me, a massive oversight.
WHYYYYYY?
So why isn't it there? EA's Peter Moore told Gamespot earlier this year: "Very few people actually play the single-player on these kinds of games. That’s what the data points to."
Really? Because I always do. I barely played online with CoD: Advanced Warfare. The lack of a detailed story in Destiny is a huge part of why I never fell in love with that game, and can't quite bring myself to care about The Taken King.
I want story in my games, I want to go on an adventure, and if ever a series is crying out for a story it's Star Wars: Battlefront. The lore, the history, the characters of Star Wars... there was opportunity here to add to that. To build on what has gone before.
Instead, what it seems that we're getting is just another online shooter, albeit one that's cosplaying as Star Wars.
I went to my daughter's 18th birthday party dressed as Princess Leia, and completely went to town on my costume for the recent Secret Cinema screening of The Empire Strikes Back. What's more, I still get annoyed - more than 30 years on - about a woman who I once overheard referring to the films as "Star Wars Galactica".
But for me, I never played with my Star Wars toys as plastic soldiers. They were characters in an ongoing saga. My bedroom was a Galaxy Far Far Away. Often the stories I plotted out with those characters would span weeks. I'd set up the figures in the morning before school, and would spend the whole day thinking about the next chapter in their lives.
And that might be why I've never loved the Battlefront games. And also why I did terribly at school.
A STAR WARS STORY
Battlefront has never really cared about delivering a single-player experience.
Yet for me, Star Wars is a story, not a series of battles. The storytelling in the prequels might be woefully imbalanced, but that original trilogy was an exercise in economic and iconic storytelling.
The moments in the original saga that burn brightest in my memory - in my soul - are Darth Vader's revelation about Luke's parentage, Luke staring out at the twin suns of Tatooine, Han kissing Leia on the Falcon, or Vader's redemption. Moments of character that mattered. It was a story that played out against a backdrop of a star war - it was never about the war itself. At least, not for me.
And so it's hard to care about Star Wars Battlefront. Don't get me wrong: I'll be there the day it comes out. I'll be bringing you a review. But as my friend said in our texts last night, the technology has finally reached a point where we can enter the Star Wars saga and feel fully immersed. Imagine a new version of Dark Forces or Jedi Knight with the visuals offered by Battlefront.
A game where we become the story - where we are invested - rather than a video game where we're mere cogs in some massive online battle. The lack of a single-player campaign in Battlefront is, for me, a massive oversight.
WHYYYYYY?
So why isn't it there? EA's Peter Moore told Gamespot earlier this year: "Very few people actually play the single-player on these kinds of games. That’s what the data points to."
Really? Because I always do. I barely played online with CoD: Advanced Warfare. The lack of a detailed story in Destiny is a huge part of why I never fell in love with that game, and can't quite bring myself to care about The Taken King.
I want story in my games, I want to go on an adventure, and if ever a series is crying out for a story it's Star Wars: Battlefront. The lore, the history, the characters of Star Wars... there was opportunity here to add to that. To build on what has gone before.
Instead, what it seems that we're getting is just another online shooter, albeit one that's cosplaying as Star Wars.
MINORITY REPORT
Maybe I'm in the minority. I get that playing online is a massive thing, but I've felt relieved in recent years that there has been more of a swing back around towards single player. I mean, I play online... but I'm not a good enough player to really enjoy it.
The constant, repetitive, staccato, progress - spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn - is not my idea of a good time. I'm sure it's brilliant if you're the one who's repeatedly killing me, but getting to that place where I'm any good seems like too slow a grind, too much like a chore. I don't want that. I want to be engaged, not frustrated.
Few of my mates play online these days, and they were the only people in the world who I stood a chance against. Once I'm out there battling the rest of the world I'm merely cannon fodder.
But that doesn't even matter in this instance. Because I don't care about flying snowspeeders into battle against strangers online. What I really want is to be engaged with a new Star Wars story. To become a part of it.
Here we are in 2015, with a new Star Wars movie on the horizon, new books and comics, that are broadening that universe like never before - filling in gaps between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. Video games should've been a part of that, and Battlefront could've been a part of that.
But no. Apparently, people only want to play games online, according to EA's Peter Moore. Or would that have just added too much to the game's budget, Peter? And what's the point of that when data points towards idiots like me buying it regardless?
Maybe I'm in the minority. I get that playing online is a massive thing, but I've felt relieved in recent years that there has been more of a swing back around towards single player. I mean, I play online... but I'm not a good enough player to really enjoy it.
The constant, repetitive, staccato, progress - spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn, die, spawn - is not my idea of a good time. I'm sure it's brilliant if you're the one who's repeatedly killing me, but getting to that place where I'm any good seems like too slow a grind, too much like a chore. I don't want that. I want to be engaged, not frustrated.
Few of my mates play online these days, and they were the only people in the world who I stood a chance against. Once I'm out there battling the rest of the world I'm merely cannon fodder.
But that doesn't even matter in this instance. Because I don't care about flying snowspeeders into battle against strangers online. What I really want is to be engaged with a new Star Wars story. To become a part of it.
Here we are in 2015, with a new Star Wars movie on the horizon, new books and comics, that are broadening that universe like never before - filling in gaps between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. Video games should've been a part of that, and Battlefront could've been a part of that.
But no. Apparently, people only want to play games online, according to EA's Peter Moore. Or would that have just added too much to the game's budget, Peter? And what's the point of that when data points towards idiots like me buying it regardless?
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