Steep is Ubisoft’s take on extreme sports games, and like most things Ubisoft, it features an open world with a multitude of endeavors waiting to be undertaken.
The premise is simple, you’re an adrenaline junkie out in the Alps, taking part in snowboarding, skiing, paragliding , and wingsuit events. The mission structure is simple. You can switch to any type of event among the aforementioned four at any time on the fly. And you rack up points for pulling off complex tricks, narrowly avoiding obstacles, winning at the events, and sometimes even hugging a tree at top speed, shattering every bone in your body.
It’s easy to get a hang of, and is purely skill based. there’s no character or equipment leveling, even though you do acquire new gear for winning events.
The events in itself are sheer adrenaline-inducing fun, be it paragliding across the huge course, taking in the sights, or zipping down at breakneck speeds on the wingsuit, or pulling off tricks on skis and snowboards. The map in itself is fairly huge, and the game world is a sight to behold.
Events, spread across the open world, are in the form of races, time trials, and free style events. You can get to these events by mixing up between paragliding, wingsuiting, skiing and snowboarding, and it’s tremendous amounts of fun navigating between glaciers, jagged peaks, and tree-lines.
The fun, however, is not long lasting, since there’s no real sense of progression, other than you getting a better hang of it. And it’s not much fun plying alone either. Sitting around with friends, and challenging each other over a round of beer was the most fun I ever got out of Steep, and I don’t see myself ever getting back to playing it anytime soon.
While the controls are fine for the most part, they are not hyper responsive, and that translates to speedy but simplistic gameplay.
Online interactions are scarce as you will encounter players every so often, and every session only supports up to four players. This leads to the huge game world feeling empty for the most part.
Steep is fun for a while as you take in the sights, and try getting to the distant peak for the next event. It got stale incredibly fast, and while I did appreciate Ubisoft trying to being in variety to the games we got to play this year, an overall lack of progression, and scant online interactions gave me no reason to return after the initial thrill was over.
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