61 Frames Per Second : dlc

The Problem With XBLA Pricing

Bob Mackey — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:15:00 GMT

When the amazing Bionic Commando: Rearmed launched last summer at the cost of 800 Microsoft Points (10 dollars), fans of the old-school franchise were relieved--and some were even worried that Capcom wasn't charging enough. But just a week before this, the 1200-Point price tag attached to the equally-amazing Braid caused a bit of alarm--though most agreed that an extra five bucks was more than worth it for such a unique and unforgettable experience.

These days, the 800 Point-and-under pricing structure of XBLA games is seemingly becoming a thing of the past; this week's releases of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix and Flock are available for 20 and 15 dollars, respectively. For the gamer on a budget--or me, anyway--the 10-dollar price point is the sweet spot for XBLA game prices. And as new XBLA releases find themselves slipping further and further from this comfortable territory, I'm finding myself less and less interested in what's available in the marketplace.

Before I'm ripped to shreds, I'd like to state that I do want to see the makers of these XBLA games adequately compensated for their work--it's just that the perceived value of a new game (downloadable or not) is far less than publishers think it is. Even at the happy price point of $10, frugal gamers can get much more than a single XBLA game; in fact, if you're a regular follower of Steam's fantastic sales, you could have bought both Bioshock and Tomb Raider Anniversary for this tiny sum.

Of course, these games can be had for so cheap because their publishers have already sold as many copies as they could at retail prices, but that doesn't mean that this competition doesn't exist. The Xbox Live Marketplace has been slashing prices on some of their more-popular games--the first episode of Penny-Arcade Adventures has had its originally-outrageous price chopped in half this week--but we're creeping closer and closer to having 15 dollars as the norm.

What do you 61FPS readers think about the situation? Has the rising cost of XBLA games made you just as miserly as me?

Related Links:

Whatcha Playing: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Again)
Board Games Should Be Downloadable
Yahtzee Says, Support Your Local Independent Developer (He's Right).

Burnout: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Bob Mackey — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:00:00 GMT

I gotta hand it to the charitable folks over at Criterion; since last January's release of Burnout: Paradise, they've released quite a few substantial DLC updates at absolutely no cost to the consumer. Where companies like Namco-Bandai are content to find ridiculous ways to get their hands on your hard-earned money, Criterion doesn't seem to mind playing Santa three times a year to support one of the greatest racing games we've seen this generation. And even though they plan on charging for their upcoming pack of downloadable cars that absolutely don't infringe on any copyrights whatsoever, the creators of Burnout have at least one more free update coming out on February 6.

While the last free Burnout updates were largely content-related, this new one appears to be a complete under-the-hood overhaul; and the addition of one hugely-missed option is definitely going to bring me back to a game I should have honestly played a lot longer. The big announcement?

You ask – we deliver. Restart is in! You can now quit or fail an event and choose to restart it. You’ll be transferred to the start location ready for action. We’ve always enjoyed the feeling of freedom that Paradise City’s open world delivers, but we appreciate that as you run low on events towards the end of the game, you can spend a little too long in transit.

While I certainly thought the open-world nature of Paradise was a nice change of pace, the annoyance of having to drive back to the starting point of failed events made the game much more tedious than it needed to be. It's true that the streets of Paradise City are literally littered with tons of challenges, but it was always a pain getting stuck out in the boonies after failing a race--and I couldn't say I enjoyed wasting minutes of driving time manually restarting a car-specific mission. If anything, it's just nice to see a developer admit to a glaring flaw in an otherwise great game. Had Kaz Hirai done PR for Criterion, I'm sure we'd be hearing the lack of a restart in Burnout ensures that gamers will have to trade in their precious free time to "unlock the fun." Then he'd start dancing around for reasons only known to clinical psychologists.

Related Links:

John’s Games of 2008: Year of the Open World
Barack Obama's Sweet Ride
Yeah, But Is It Art?: Crazy Taxi

The GTAIV DLC: Does Anyone Still Care?

Bob Mackey — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 03:00:00 GMT

The ending of Grand Theft Auto IV left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth, if only because it was just so cruel and heartless to its affable main character; Nico Bellic's reward for 60 hours of revenge was nothing but a post-game purgatory in which he had free reign of a sterile city without the underlying social network so much of his pre-ending life was built upon. And while my backlash against GTAIV isn't quite as harsh as the current opinion held by quite a few games journalists, I never really felt the desire to play the game again after Nico's story was abandoned without anything even resembling an epilogue. Admittedly, the game's obsession with narrative over gameplay really made it suffer, but even so, the second Nico became an aimless NPC was when I stopped caring about anything GTAIV.

So now that we're a less than a month away from The Lost and the Damned, GTAIV's first DLC expansion, I can't help but utter the overused apathy signifier known as "Meh." To be honest, this opinion of mine isn't exactly new; back when I heard that GTAIV's DLC would have nothing to do with Nico Bellic, I was a little disappointed. And ever since I wanted to see what happens to the guy after the original game's final mission (aside from what I make him do), I couldn't even muster up the interest necessary to keep GTAIV in my collection. For as overly-long as GTAIV's story was--that Italian Mafia crap was an awful diversion--it always belonged to Nico. And the fact that Rockstar has ditched him entirely feels like a betrayal of sorts--I mean, did they ever tell us why he needed all of that "mahney?" This motivation alone made the game 30 hours longer than it needed to be.

All of this leads me to wonder one thing: is anyone out there still seriously psyched about The Lost and the Damned? If so, let me know. I'd be willing to entertain some differing opinions.

Related Links:

Grand Theft Auto IV's Post-Game Purgatory
Counterpoint: Games Shouldn't Try to Be Movies
The 61FPS Review: Grand Theft Auto IV, Part 1

We are Skeptical of Cave Story's DLC

Cole Stryker — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Where this would usually be cause to celebrate, I can't help but think that anything added to this game is going to bring it down. Here's some news from the port's team:

We’re still working away at Cave Story trying to make sure it’s faithful to Amaya-san’s original while adding a few things for the console release. One of these new additions, I’m happy to announce is Download Content. I think we received enough e-mails demanding it that we’re doing our best to include some new surprises in the WiiWare release. You’re going to have to wait for more info on that.

Even hearing the phrase "graphical facelift" makes me cringe. One of the game's biggest appeals is it's charictaristically pixellated style. Hopefully they won't change things too much. I'll let Tim Rogers at Action Button articulate why I don't want anything in this game to be "retouched" or "improved" or "facelifted":

Cave Story’s existence as a 100% independent product is, in a way, both the cause and effect of its immortally perfect game design. We have applauded, as of late, game developers with “common sense”. In this very review, we have mentioned the spreadsheet mentality of the Modern Large Game Publisher. The parenthetical sentence in which we say that game companies actually hire people to tell them that “Sports games appeal to sports fans” was more than a rhetorical device: it was a report of fact. There’s an objective truth hidden, somewhere deep inside Cave Story’s kiddy pool of mechanics: that videogames can and will be planned and polished, though the absolute conviction of one man is exponentially more powerful than the givings-up, sighings, and signing-on-the-line-which-is-dotted-ing of a committee of professional quitters.

Cave Story is just fine the way it is. Adding to it would only dillute its excellence. For those of you who have yet to play the game, I suggest you download and play it RIGHT. NOW.

(via Kotaku)

Industry Predictions for 2009: Doom and Gloom Edition

Joe Keiser — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Happy New Year, everyone! Please note before continuing that you are unlikely to see the word “happy” in any other place in this entry. My predictions for where gaming is going in 2009 are not particularly rosy, but these are lean times, and lean times do not care so much about your feelings.

More closures: As investors pulled money and game sales underperformed, companies closed left and right at the end of 2008. I expect that trend to continue as more Christmas sales results come in. Independent developers, the ones completely unprotected from the financial storm, will be in the most trouble, but publishers will probably close down a significant number of internal studios also. Midway, of course, will be first—there’s a chance some semblance of the company will get out of its current turmoil, but that Midway will bear little resemblance to the one of today.

The $60 price ceiling will hold: Late in the year, the news that Call of Duty: World at War was being sold at $50 in some places scared the bejeezus out of some of the big industry analysts, who began to wonder aloud if the $60 price ceiling was viable in a recession of this magnitude. But the answer to that question doesn’t really matter: whether it seems viable or not, there is no way that that maximum price will drop. It took the industry ten years, a lot of hard work and a whole new hardware generation to get to $60. Lowering the price now wouldn’t just hurt bottom lines immediately, it would hurt them long term as publishers would have to do all that hard work again. Price cuts from an initial asking price of $60 may come quickly, but you all know that’s nor new either. After all it wasn’t that difficult to find Call of Duty 4 for $40 prior to Christmas 2007.

DLC will reign supreme: 2009 will be the big year for downloadable games and add-ons. 2008 set pretty solid bedrock for this to occur, thanks to excellent and financially successful DLC-exclusive titles like Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and World of Goo. In this down economy, these cheap games will look better than ever to gamers, while game makers will also appreciate how the low development and distribution costs affect their quarterly budgets. When the DSi launches in the US with its own online store, digital distribution will start a long and healthy boom.

The PSP will not put up, but shut up: With things dwindling on every front for Sony, 2009 will be the year where the company will have to look itself in the mirror and ask exactly what its goals actually are with the PSP. Chances are it will not have a good enough answer to this question. There are a few things that could be done to save the system and brand, but it’s just as likely that Sony will let the little thing limp into 2010 and die so the company can instead focus resources on its primary console business. Because that’s where it really needs help.

Related Links:

Looking Ahead: 10 Wii Games Amber's Looking Forward To in 2009
On Sega and the Proper Use of the Wii in 2009
Top 5 Reasons Why 2009 Will Bring the End of Lists

Holiday DLC for You and Yours

Joe Keiser — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Harmonix has just announced that next week’s Rock Band DLC content will be holiday themed, proving once again that they really get it when it comes to the music game market. The songs are, of course, pretty decent:

Barenaked Ladies – Hanukkah Blessings
Billy Squier – Christmas is the Time to Say I Love You
The Pretenders – Blue Christmas

This is the kind of thing that DLC is built for, especially for games that have built a business model around frequent DLC updates. Such a model allows for the industry to indulge yearly in a little bit of seasonal content, the same way Hollywood spews out the same cheaply-made movie about holiday family awkwardness every first weekend of December. I’m no fan of Christmas movies, but I’m happy and eager to drape games I already like in festive colors for a few days every winter.

Here’s a few other 2008 holiday DLC things to fool around with next to the fireplace this year. No, Guitar Hero isn’t getting anything (humbug). No, Rock Revolution isn’t getting anything either (hey, if you were Konami, would you support that game?).

Lips: Microsoft’s don’t-call-it-a-karaoke-game is getting a pretty nice set of holiday songs. If it can keep up this level of DLC updates, it could eventually become a contender:

Gene Autry – Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer
Brenda Lee – Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree
Burl Ives – A Holly Jolly Christmas
Barenaked Ladies – Hanukkah Blessings
Nat King Cole – Merry Christmas to You
Bing Crosby – White Christmas

SingStar: But it would take a while for Lips to catch up to Sony’s original don’t-call-it-a-karaoke-game. The SingStore already has more than 400 songs in it, and with its holiday DLC update it’s flexed its muscles and thrown up Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime. Oh, and these other titles:

Toni Braxton – Have Yourself a Merry Little Xmas
Babyface – Sleigh Ride
Shakin’ Stevens – Merry Christmas
Celine Dion – Christmas Eve

Soulcalibur IV: If you hate singing carols but love holiday fetish wear, Soulcalibur IV’s Customization Pack 3 is your fix. It contains all the costuming doodads you need to turn Ivy into a sexy, beardless Santa Claus. I’m not here to judge.

Xbox 360: There’s a holiday theme for the dashboard you probably know about, some skiing clothes for your avatar, and an avatar-torturing snow globe for some reason. But at least it’s something, compared to the…

PS3: which doesn’t have anything official. But the PlayStation Network Store has a third-party Mrs. Claus theme, which creepily attempts to eroticize Santa, infidelity (what, no Ms. Claus?) and freezing to death at the same time. PlayStation Home just got beards, which could probably be turned into festive beards if you ever wanted to venture into Home again.

Related Links:

Santa's Welcome Bounty: Christmas Morning Games
Whatcha Playing: A Little Singin’, a Little Dancin’
Activision Possibly Too Legit to Quit, Working with MC Hammer

Trailer Review: Terrifying New Mirror’s Edge Content

Joe Keiser — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Ah, Mirror’s Edge. There’s so much to think about when talking about it. It is, without doubt, a flawed, frustrating experience, the kind of game experience that you hate just as much you love. It also just happens to be the most important, must-play AAA title of the year. And it’s beautiful, and also nauseating. It has dizzying production values, and cheap looking Flash-like cutscenes. For every positive point, DICE’s opus has an equally negative counter-point, save for the one negative that stands alone: Mirror’s Edge is pretty darn short.

So of course there’s new DLC coming out for it, and it’s not just more of the same—for starters it’s called the Pure Time Trials pack, time trials being the one thing that everyone unequivocally loved about the original.

And judging by the trailer, which I’ve just watched for the sixth time in a row, it is also in its way more beautiful than the rooftop playgrounds of the game’s story mode. If you thought that was a clinic in Swedish minimalism, you’ve seen nothing—these new levels are made entirely of blocks of solid color hovering in space. The camera twirls as the mind boggles, searching for the seemingly limitless paths of flow in this pristinely artificial landscape. Here is the game that design mechanic fetishists wanted the original to be, this trailer seems to say. I personally couldn’t be happier.

Previous Trailer Reviews:

The Chase - Felix Meets Felicity
Yakuza 3
Dragon Quest IX
TGS Trailer Time: Resident Evil 5
Retro Game Challenge
Golden Axe: Beast Rider
House of the Dead: Overkill
Riz-Zoawd
Idolm@ster PSP
The Last Guy
Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff
Captain Rainbow
Mega Man 9 and Chrono Trigger DS
Densetsu no Stafi 5
Sonic Unleashed
Infinite Undiscovery
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
Street Fighter IV
The Conduit
Mirror’s Edge

Pay-Per-Grind: Tales of Vesperia Let’s You Level With Cash

John Constantine — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:00:00 GMT

We’ve been talking a whole hell of a lot about role-playing games around these parts lately. Of course, we’ve also been musing on the amount of time you need to spend playing certain games, RPGs in particular. Cutting the grind out of RPGs is an entire industry when it comes to MMOs. Don’t have two-hundred thirty-nine hours to pour into World of Warcraft? Well, there are a number of fine, trustworthy organizations based out of China and elsewhere that will get you your level-65 character for a few measly sawbucks. When it comes to the single-player, console RPG, though, you have one of two choices for beefing up your characters: you either cheat (in-game exploit or using a Gameshark-style device) or you put in the many, many hours necessary to max out your party. But, like so much in the age of downloadable content, the times are a changin’. Namco’s Tales of Vesperia got its first downloadable content this week and, for just a few hundred Microsoft Points, you can buy your characters ten levels of experience.

Call me crazy, but doesn’t this defeat the point of the console RPG? At the end of the day this games only give two types of satisfaction to the player, completing a narrative and watching numbers go up. Most RPGs are not difficult but the reason to play them is engaging in a basic routine of rock, paper, scissor, and feeling an admittedly shallow sense of accomplishment as statistics associated with your characters rise. Paying money for increased stats might shorten the game, giving more access to the narrative, but why play an RPG for just that? It’s like you’re getting ripped off by yourself and Namco simultaneously.

(Link: Kotaku)

Related links:

Time Investment
Gaming on a Train: Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy IV DS: Love, Hope and Betrayal For the Busy Commuter
Know Your Final Fantasy IV Trivia. It Could Save Your Life.