Blackettes, maybe?
Ah-ha! You didn’t know that I too was an aspiring comic artist, now, did you (maybe you did… I did post Mr. Root Beer Milk Cow up a couple weeks ago)? I use the term “comic artist” fairly loosely; my methods are a bit less… sophisticated than Jonathan’s. But hey, I’ve still got that rugged indie feel, right? …Right?
We’ve had a little over a week to play with the Halo 3 Mythic Map Pack, and the verdict is… competent. Bungie kinda painted themselves into a naming corner there. When I hear “Mythic Map Pack,” especially in the context of succeeding the Legendary and Heroic Packs, I think of this titan of a map pack, the mating of the Gaia and Kronos map packs from which the little Olympian maps spew forth. But onto the judgment… If any map has a right to be called an arena, Assembly is it, where you feel harrowed on the maze-like lower level and vulnerable on the more open higher one. Lifts are placed in such a way as if to better scare your opponants; one leads to a rocket launcher, the other zip right into the heart of each base. Orbital may scare you at first with its hallways and, um, windows and… boxes, but once you get the idea in your head that is is essentially a U-shaped circuit, everything becomes a lot easier. Sandbox is the real treasure. If you didn’t buy the pack just to keep up with the Halo 3 map total, then you probably bought it because you want to Forge a three-level complex built for epic capture the flag games. At least, I hope you’re making three-level complexes. Underground Griffball courts are spiffy, I guess, but I never really thought anything was wrong with the Foundry version.
And thus is my judgement. It suffers from a lack of OMGs, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t worth your money. Just don’t suffer the hype.
In other news, or, more accurately, news of news, Kotaku had an article linking to a more awesomer article by Ben Fritz of Variety concerning the Resident Evil 5′s Versus DLC (priced, almost thematically, at $5). Much of the Kotaku comment thread contains impassioned arguments from readers declaring that A) they bought the disc, which means that B) they own all of the content coded on the disc, and therefore C) if part of the programming code for the Versus mode is already on the disc, then the DLC should be free.
Fritz is going for the counterpoint, which I’m leaning towards. I’ll let you read his full argument for yourself, but I think the most important truth here can be summed up as such: Publishers don’t owe customers anything. It is not a miscarriage of justice to charge for a versus mode; it’s just not the way you want it done. Some commenters reminiced about the way other publishers gave content away for free as a reward to fans for being loyal. Look at that key word in the previous sentence: ‘reward.’ Not ‘entitlement.’
Don’t get the idea that I don’t like free stuff. In an ideal gaming world, there would be online, splitscreen gaming supporting as many controllers as can connect to the console (also, real friendships would blossom daily on Xbox Live, and I’d never hear the word “gay” over my headset again). But such is not the case, and Capcom is not the first to make online multiplayer more limited. It may be unfortunate, but the price structure is their choice. The pillars supporting that structure don’t have to be made with your dollars.
Making choices since 1988,
-Pat
