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Steep Open Beta - Thoughts?
cameltosis
Member LegendaryPosts: 3,706
Hi guys,
So, this past weekend saw a sort-of open beta for the new winter sports game Steep. You had to register for the beta, but they have now dropped the NDA so we can discuss it.
http://steep.ubisoft.com/game/en-GB/home/
I was lucky enough to get into an alpha a few months ago and then the beta this weekend. I'm personally loving the game and have probably sunk 15-20 hours into it in total and will be getting it on launch day.
Good Points:
The mountains are awesome - can't stress this enough, but their world building team has done a great job recreating parts of the alps. The world is really beautiful and it's completely open world. You can change the time of day (basically just moves the sun across the sky) so you can always get some really breathtaking views. My graphics aren't that great but still looked awesome to me, I'm sure if I had a better card i'd have gotten more from the weather effects.
Wingsuits are the best - this was by far my favourite feature. I loved cruising down mountains, hovering 1-2m above the snow whilst going 100mph. It looked great and was immensely satisfying. Once I'd completed all the challenges available in this beta, I just spent hours messing about in the wingsuit. Sometimes I'd find a drop with a specific goal in mind, like threading the needle through a tiny hole, other times I'd just climb to the top of a mountain and see if I could make it to the bottom without crashing. Can't really find a video to do it justice, but this gives you a flavour
Off-piste is fun - this is something I wasn't expecting, but I also loved going off-piste on my skis and just putting together a smooth run. I wouldn't be doing many tricks, just carving my way through forests or down difficult cliff-faces. I relate this to the Skate games - I'd spend hours just cruising around doing small flip tricks, grinds and manuals because it looked realistic and good. Steep does the same to off-piste skiing - nothing fancy, just looks great and feels satisfying.
Create Your Own Challenges - I didn't explore this much, but basically at any point you can pause the game or just stop and look back at your previous run (which starts when you last switched from walking to a sport). You can watch your replays (first person wingsuit replays kick ass!) or create challenges out of your runs. They can be races, points challenges, checkpoint challenges, extreme stuff etc. I'm hopeful this will keep the game interesting long after you've completed the developer content. I created and shared a couple, but found myself going back to my own challenges just to see if I could better myself.
Bad Points:
The trick system isn't fleshed out - this is really my biggest gripe. The tricks look good, the points make sense, but there is minimal feedback. You're never told what trick you just did so the game is missing that crucial bit of feedback for the user. There is also no grinding in game and that is a big fail. They haven't put in grind rails, but there are some walls and trees ripe for it. Will also be necessary once they open up the proper snow parks (not in this beta). Also, when paragliding, you see the NPCs doing flips and barrel rolls but I could never get it to work.
Crashing down mountains - there are some massive cliffs and tons of rocks in the game, so it's really easy to stack it. However, once you've crashed you're completely out of control. On a steep mountain side, your character just rolls forever! Your character is treated as unconscious and so never attempts to slow their fall. There were times where I'd not quite clear a rock at the top of a run but my character would just ragdoll down 1/2 the mountain. The cliffs and stuff, sure, I get it, but inevitably I'd hit snow and just cartwheel down the snow for ages. IRL I'd expect the person to try to control their slide, but in game you just roll. It means that you basically can't stack it on a medium or hard run, if you do, just restart.
Paragliding is underwhelming - there are 4 sports (ski, snowboard, wingsuit, paraglide) and paragliding is by far the most dull. It's slow, somewhat clunky on controls, the tricks don't work and not that satisfying. I mostly just used it to get around and explore. Luckily only came across a few paragliding challenges in game.
Overall, I'm loving the game. The open beta was capped at level 8 and only had 2 1/2 zones fleshed out, but that still lasted me 15-20 hours. The final game is at least twice the size of the beta from what I could see in game. There are bigger mountains that we had access to and proper snowparks with more jumps / halfpipes etc, so final game should be excellent. It could do with fleshing out the trick system a bit more just to get it perfect for me, but I can live without it. Easily the best snowboarding game I've ever played. Best comparison I can make the the Skate series. Steep does to winter sports what Skate did for skateboarding - make it realistic and immensely satisfying whilst still allowing you to do some silly stuff.
So, this past weekend saw a sort-of open beta for the new winter sports game Steep. You had to register for the beta, but they have now dropped the NDA so we can discuss it.
http://steep.ubisoft.com/game/en-GB/home/
I was lucky enough to get into an alpha a few months ago and then the beta this weekend. I'm personally loving the game and have probably sunk 15-20 hours into it in total and will be getting it on launch day.
Good Points:
The mountains are awesome - can't stress this enough, but their world building team has done a great job recreating parts of the alps. The world is really beautiful and it's completely open world. You can change the time of day (basically just moves the sun across the sky) so you can always get some really breathtaking views. My graphics aren't that great but still looked awesome to me, I'm sure if I had a better card i'd have gotten more from the weather effects.
Wingsuits are the best - this was by far my favourite feature. I loved cruising down mountains, hovering 1-2m above the snow whilst going 100mph. It looked great and was immensely satisfying. Once I'd completed all the challenges available in this beta, I just spent hours messing about in the wingsuit. Sometimes I'd find a drop with a specific goal in mind, like threading the needle through a tiny hole, other times I'd just climb to the top of a mountain and see if I could make it to the bottom without crashing. Can't really find a video to do it justice, but this gives you a flavour
Off-piste is fun - this is something I wasn't expecting, but I also loved going off-piste on my skis and just putting together a smooth run. I wouldn't be doing many tricks, just carving my way through forests or down difficult cliff-faces. I relate this to the Skate games - I'd spend hours just cruising around doing small flip tricks, grinds and manuals because it looked realistic and good. Steep does the same to off-piste skiing - nothing fancy, just looks great and feels satisfying.
Create Your Own Challenges - I didn't explore this much, but basically at any point you can pause the game or just stop and look back at your previous run (which starts when you last switched from walking to a sport). You can watch your replays (first person wingsuit replays kick ass!) or create challenges out of your runs. They can be races, points challenges, checkpoint challenges, extreme stuff etc. I'm hopeful this will keep the game interesting long after you've completed the developer content. I created and shared a couple, but found myself going back to my own challenges just to see if I could better myself.
Bad Points:
The trick system isn't fleshed out - this is really my biggest gripe. The tricks look good, the points make sense, but there is minimal feedback. You're never told what trick you just did so the game is missing that crucial bit of feedback for the user. There is also no grinding in game and that is a big fail. They haven't put in grind rails, but there are some walls and trees ripe for it. Will also be necessary once they open up the proper snow parks (not in this beta). Also, when paragliding, you see the NPCs doing flips and barrel rolls but I could never get it to work.
Crashing down mountains - there are some massive cliffs and tons of rocks in the game, so it's really easy to stack it. However, once you've crashed you're completely out of control. On a steep mountain side, your character just rolls forever! Your character is treated as unconscious and so never attempts to slow their fall. There were times where I'd not quite clear a rock at the top of a run but my character would just ragdoll down 1/2 the mountain. The cliffs and stuff, sure, I get it, but inevitably I'd hit snow and just cartwheel down the snow for ages. IRL I'd expect the person to try to control their slide, but in game you just roll. It means that you basically can't stack it on a medium or hard run, if you do, just restart.
Paragliding is underwhelming - there are 4 sports (ski, snowboard, wingsuit, paraglide) and paragliding is by far the most dull. It's slow, somewhat clunky on controls, the tricks don't work and not that satisfying. I mostly just used it to get around and explore. Luckily only came across a few paragliding challenges in game.
Overall, I'm loving the game. The open beta was capped at level 8 and only had 2 1/2 zones fleshed out, but that still lasted me 15-20 hours. The final game is at least twice the size of the beta from what I could see in game. There are bigger mountains that we had access to and proper snowparks with more jumps / halfpipes etc, so final game should be excellent. It could do with fleshing out the trick system a bit more just to get it perfect for me, but I can live without it. Easily the best snowboarding game I've ever played. Best comparison I can make the the Skate series. Steep does to winter sports what Skate did for skateboarding - make it realistic and immensely satisfying whilst still allowing you to do some silly stuff.
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