Xi Continuum: the Glory of Second Chances
by SealWyf, HSM editor
Hark to the prophet, chanting in the Hub: “And lo, the people of Home were glad! For Xi had returned, and rejoicing was heard throughout the land.” And all around him, the avatars danced and cheered, for Xi had come once more.
I could stop there, and fill the rest of this page with the literary equivalent of “OMG! This is going to be totally awesome!” Which it is, if nDreams has anything to say about it. I’m sure we will all be obsessed with Xi: Continuum for the next 47 days. And even longer — because this time around, it doesn’t need to be played in real time.
But I have to admit that my reaction to the return of Xi is ever so slightly ambivalent. And I’m sure the same is true for many of us who were there at the beginning, and experienced the original in all of its glorious astonishment. It’s one of the things we Home veterans can’t stop talking about, along with the toxic boredom of closed beta (which I missed), the elimination of simple glitching and the vanished glories of Central Plaza. “You should have been there,” we say. “It was totally amazing!”
And, indeed, it was. One day, things just started happening. A cryptic symbol appeared on a wall in Central Plaza. A few days later, it turned into a portal, and we discovered a surreal bunker under the Plaza. There were games and puzzles, a sarcastic robot, and portals to still other places. At one point we descended through a manhole cover in Central Plaza into a hidden “maintenance” area, where we modified our avatars to sneak through security into still other rooms.
And then there were parts of Xi you could only play on the Internet. Simple browsers were provided in the Xi space itself, but it was easier if you had a computer. There were websites to visit and clues to decipher, which tied back into clues planted in Home.
And then, astonishingly, Xi spilled out into the real world, with clues displayed on physical billboards in cities in several countries. Nobody had ever seen anything like this, in or out of Home.
Networking was crucial. The simplest form of networking was people helping each other in real time in Home, offering hints or even answers. There were also user-created Xi support sites on the net. One of these has since grown into the world’s largest Home information database and blog, a site whose servers host this magazine. Truly, Xi has an enduring heritage.
It’s always been one of my greatest Home regrets that I didn’t finish Xi. Somehow I hadn’t gotten the memo that this wonderful augmented reality game wouldn’t be around forever. I was rationing it, taking it slowly and deliberately, still working to complete the games at which I sucked when, suddenly, it was over. Xi went away, to be replaced eventually by the Xi Museum, a shrine to the games I never completed.
I poked at it a bit, and got a few of the glowing trophy cannisters. I purchased Stapler and Jess’s Apartment in a fit of nostalgia. But, for me, Xi was over — a set of complex memories and mixed emotions, in which nostalgia and regret played the starring roles. I had been there, done that. I had gotten the tee shirt. (It’s still one of my favorites.) I had experienced Xi, or at least the part of it I completed. Home had moved on, and so had we. Xi was our lost Atlantis, and the Xi Museum our fossilized Pompeii.
Except now it’s all returning, and I find myself with oddly mixed emotions. Because, if life has an inviolable rule, it’s that you really can’t go home again. Whatever this new Xi will be, it won’t be the one we remember. That would be true even if the gameplay were identical — which, thankfully, it is not. Because so much of the joy of Xi was not the game, but the heady thrill of discovery, the “What are they up to now?” anticipation we felt each day as we came into Home, excited to face Xi’s latest complexity.
No, this Xi will be different. We don’t know exactly how yet — only the developers know for sure. But one thing that we know has changed is the pace of play. There will still be a “real time” game, which will take 47 days. (Why they scheduled this right on top of Christmas holidays, when many of us have real-world obligations, is a great and annoying mystery.) But you can also choose to play it at your own pace, as I mistakenly tried with the original. For this, I am profoundly grateful. I like to take my time with things. But the self-paced option will remove some of the urgency of classic Xi, and it will also dilute the sense that we are experiencing real-world events, which somehow have been transported into Home.
Another difference is that this Xi is monetized. I totally understand that decision, and I accept it as necessary. The original game was subsidized by Sony as a way to build buzz for Home. But the commercial element may discourage some people from playing. If nothing else, having to spend money on Xi will make it feel more like a game, and less like a real-world phenomenon.
So much in Home has changed since 2009. Back then, we were all on our own, figuring out this weird place we had found on our gaming consoles. We had to find ways to amuse ourselves. There was not much to do, and Xi felt like a gift from the Home gods.
And so, perhaps, our memories of the game are colored by the memories of the emotions it evoked. Perhaps, heretical as this statement may seem, the games of Xi are not all that exciting, compared to what we now have in Home. I sense that when I return to the Xi Museum, what I am feeling is not so much the engagement of a gamer as a vague, half-sad nostalgia. What kind of interest would Hexopolis attract if it were introduced today? What about the hover-bike races? The mazes? I suspect that most of us would try them once or twice, then drift away. Home is so much more interesting now.
But the teaser videos for the new Xi look amazing. Home has gone through several core upgrades since 2009, and nDreams has had three years to perfect its techniques. Perhaps the best way to approach Xi: Continuum is as an independent game, with little relation to the original. Or we can see it as an homage to the original, a world that includes Jess and EFD, but leaps ahead into new territory. What we have seen so far leads me to believe that this Xi will be far better than the original, in terms of game design and implementation.
But for those of us who were there, the original Xi will always hold a special place in our Home memories. You should have been there, we’ll tell the newcomers. This is okay, but the original Xi was perfect. We’ll never see its like again.
That’s the power of memory for you. We can never return to the things that we remember. Or, if we do, they won’t be the same. Because we remember them as better than they were. Just because, for us, they were fresh and new.
But, wishful memories aside, the fact remains that Xi broke new ground in Home, and in console gaming. It was the first console-based alternate-reality game. And it pulled it off on a platform that was much simpler than what we have today. It will always be special, in gaming history and our own remembered lives.
And now Xi is returning. For those who are new to Home, it’s a chance to explore and discover. For those who were there, it’s a chance to rediscover and remember. And, for some of us, it provides an unexpected gift: a second chance, to do it right.
December 13th, 2012 by SealWyf_ | 5 comments
SealWyf is a museum database programmer, who has been active in online communities since before the Internet, and in console gaming since the PS1. In games, she prefers the beautiful and quirky, and anything with a strong storyline. She is obsessed with creating new aesthetic experiences in PlayStation Home.
I too wondered if Xi would live up to it’s myth, but judging from the reactions of the people who have played the original that I have talked to already about it after only the first day, they are very happy with their purchase. So I guess nDremas is off to a good start.
I’m very impressed with what I’ve seen so far — basically the intro sequence and the initial state of the Vertigo apartment. Xi: Continuum seems a lot more story-driven than the original. It feels like a disc-based title, possibly from the PS1 era. This is not a complaint, mind you — PS1 included such classics as Final Fantasy VII and VIII. I think we’re in for a wild ride.
Did anyone else do a major doubletake when EatFlamingDeath addresses your character as “little homeling”? Since I was playing in Homeling General form at the time, I wondered for a brief moment whether the AI was a heck of a lot more advanced than I had expected. Then I realized it was lower-case “homeling”, a citizen of Home. But it still gave me the warm-and-fuzzies.
I’m a Home penny-pincher everybody knows that, but ndreams did great so far on Xi2 and their idea of doing the intro before we spend 1 penny is brilliant the voice overs are great, outside of wishing it had more of the voice overs I’ll give Xi2 my KLC certified 9 outta 10. And yes Seal, I noticed the homeling thing too, and I instantly thought of you.
I was there for Xi and at the time it really didn’t strike me as amazing as it seems to have been for so many other people. It made Home more interesting at the time, but other than that I don’t see why it built so much hype. Maybe because I’m younger? I don’t know. A lot of those puzzles and clues were things I never would have picked up on or been able to solve without the guides posted on the forums.
I’ve been pretty indifferent to Xi Continuum since it was announced. It’s too bad some of the forum goers have been upset by the pay to play access. They seem like bigger Xi fans than I ever could be, so it’s kinda strange someone like me is willing to support nDreams and their efforts to bring us another interesting experience in Home.