Taking control – grippers and slippers
Through playing Blur and Split/Second recently, the idea popped into my mind that there could be two fundamental kinds of game, and people who play them. Blur gives you complete control over what is happening, offering a way out of every eventuality as long as you are prepared for it. On the other hand we have Split/Second, where sometimes you just can’t get a grip on the situation, and all you can do is let it slip away.
I’m not yet going to try and determine what personality traits people who play one or the other have, because this idea might not even have a solid foundation, so for now I’m just going to try and separate the two and establish some definitions. I’m going to call them grippers and slippers, and hope that you can overlook any sexual innuendo.
Grippers vs Slippers
Grippers – These games want to give you complete control, because they know how important it is for you to be directly responsible for your actions so you can learn from them and improve.
Slippers – These games aren’t really bothered about how good you are, they want you to have a certain experience and if that means helping or screwing you over a little bit so you can enjoy the game a bit more, then that’s what’s going to happen.
Blur is a gripper because at its core you’re driving around a course, then layered on top of that is the power ups. You can control the AI’s use of these power ups by ensuring you have power ups of your own that can counter them. While you can obviously not control the AI directly, the game is clearly designed such that your decisions and actions are all that determines whether you win or lose. Split/Second, however, was designed with the idea that you need to forsake a little bit of influence to experience the scripted events that make the game so enjoyable. You might not be able to do anything about a building landing on you, and sure enough it can cost you the race through no fault of your own, but you’ll forget about it the next time you’re dropping a building on someone else.
This is a very brief glance of the idea that I have built up in my mind, and perhaps it makes sense only to me, but I hope there’s at least one person out there who can see where I’m coming from with this one. I’ll write this up fully one day, but for now this is just me jotting down some ideas and seeing if anyone understands them. I believe there may even be connections between each type and certain personalities, but that’s for next time when hopefully I’ll have a better grasp on the idea.
