Buying the game twice

May 26, 2005

It's a really good article, but here's my favourite part...

"Racing games pull this, too. Why do I have to spend 40 hours driving a minivan just to get enough money to buy a Honda Civic? Why can't I have access to all of the content right away? What if I don't feel any satisfaction in "unlocking" the game features I already paid real-life money for and just want to fucking race the Ferrari on the box art! "

YES! This absolutely drives me nuts. I bought Project Gotham Racing 2 for the Xbox, and found out I couldn't actually race that Enzo Ferrari on the box until I worked for days driving other shitty cars to earn kudos I could use to buy the car.

Um, I already earned dollars by spending my time working my real job so I could afford the time to play the damn game I paid for with said dollars. I haven't bought Forza Motorsport yet, even though it looks like a great racing game, because I cannot stand the idea of having to drive to earn credits to buy and upgrade other cars. There needs to be a toggle that switches between "give me everything this game has" and "i'll play your stupid skill game".

I still don't have one of the cars because I'd have to spent about a week of solid game time driving every level on the hardest difficulty, and I still don't have all the maps. This despite hundreds of hours of game time. Do I have to grab my ankles?

Oh, and if I take my game to my friend's house we can't use all the cars and maps I've unlocked because that information is locked on my hard drive. This is something Xbox Live should be solving. Put that information on their server and let me log into my profile on from any Xbox so I can have my progress available there too.