Marketplace Mayhem: Guitar Hero 2 Edition

Major Nelson has revealed the pricing for the first 3 song packs now available on XBox Live for Guitar Hero 2.  For 500 points, you can be the proud owner of a 3-pack of songs that were included in Guitar Hero 1.  I just have to say one thing: Ouch.

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Third Time’s The Charm

I’ve been following the minor controversy of free Live content for a little while, but Epic’s anemic response has finally moved me to write something on it.  For those of you who are unaware, Epic was apparently going to release some free maps for Gears of War - as Mark Rein put it, their philosophy is that they can build a user base by overdelivering on the content and thus getting people more involved in the franchise.  Microsoft, who wants to condition gamers to pay for additional content, wouldn’t let them do that.

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Just So We Have This Clear…

There’s no 3rd party support lined up, and the main benefits of membership are playing against 360 players and getting achievements.  Yes, Games For Windows is still lookin’ good.

Additionally, GFW seems to actually threaten existing features.  GFW The Magazine states:

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Public Service Announcement: Live Connection Sharing

Warning: I will readily admit I am the less technically proficient of the Jeff/Geoff duo.  So the description here of how I finally got my connection sharing up and ready will be pretty basic to most of you.  Feel free to skip.

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Paying the Piper

Should bigger Xbox Live games mean bigger prices?  I think I agree with commenter Chaot1c’s take on this one.  It really depends on why the game is bigger - there are a whole lot of possibilities here.  The key for me is really whether you are paying for additional effort/cost incurred on the part of the developer.

If the game is just a port of a pre-existing game, I can’t imagine paying more than the 800 point standard.  You’re not paying for any incremental value simply because the game size is bigger - the work has already gone into it.  So just because SoTN is bigger doesn’t mean it’s worth more to me.  (I’d love to see the margins on a VC game or Live port.)

If the game is bigger because a developer has created it ex nihilo, then we can talk.  I’m still not sold yet, though.  Is it bigger because the levels are larger?  The character art is slightly tweaked?  There’s multiplayer?  Some of the size is going to be attributable to value-added contributions; other portions may not.  And so while there’s a definite correlation between game size and expected price, it’s not a 1 to 1 relationship.

TMNT Comes to XBox Live Arcade

Joystiq reports that for the same price as a completely un-updated, non-online NES Virtual Console game you’ll soon be able to get the original TMNT Arcade Game that includes a 2-4 player online mode, a leaderboard, and achievements. It’s not known yet whether there will be an “enhanced” mode, but for $5… more than I probably spent in quarters on the game, it seems like a pretty good deal. If the online mode works better than Contra supposedly did, I’ll probably be picking this one up. Anyone else?

Alien Hominid is Sweet

Sorry for the lack of updates; I finally got my 360 hooked up and I’ve spent most of the last two days playing Gears of War incessantly.  I’m looking forward to making my way through the backlog of games that have accumulated since launch; R6: Vegas and Crackdown are high on my list.

As much fun as I had playing GoW, though, I was able to break away from the Locust-splattering action to play level after level of Alien Hominid.  It surprises me a bit that my $60 copy of Gears may sometimes take a backseat to an 800 point shooter.  But Alien Hominid has managed to cram an amazing amount of gameplay into what basically boils down to a colorful Contra clone.  And the difficulty gives Shattered Soldier a run for its money.  I commend it to all 360 owners.

The Wii60 Goes Mainstream

This isn’t going to be news to anyone likely to read this site, but Slate just posted an article by their resident “Gaming” writer, Chris Suellentrop, about the joys of casual gaming.  He owns a Wii and 360 and has apparently been playing more Texas Hold ‘Em than is traditionally considered healthy.

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